Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

With regard to local policing committees, these will not be provided with new buildings or furniture. The committees will function in existing premises. Most of the associated costs are administrative, and most of the support for the committees themselves will be supplied by administrative staff from existing bodies.

There are funding programmes which already aid bodies such as community crime forums and similar matters. They are not the same as funds going to establishing the local policing committees. The existing resources for those types of operations, which come from State sources, are not all tied up together in the €600,000 package. That is intended as new money to support the costs of the pilot scheme of local policing committees. It is not a question of private funding. However, local authorities will be expected to fund local policing forums, as they have done in the past.

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