Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

A number of measures had to be taken before the partnerships could be established, accounting for how the current three pilots have operated. I am establishing a national office for community safety, which will have the overarching objective of managing and, above all, supporting and delivering the objectives of the national strategy. There will be training, guidance and other supports for the local community safety partnerships. The partnerships themselves will have dedicated staff and teams that they can work with. The appointment of staff and processes are already in train.

Separately, an expression-of-interest process will be undertaken by each local authority to identify a suitable chairperson. I requested that councillors who wanted to apply to be chair not start the process until after the local elections to give people time to know who is elected. That process will start immediately. As local authorities and councillors start to populate the various committees, this will then apply in the same way here. My objective is to have a community partnership per local authority area. Beyond that, there can be what will be known as fora or more regionalised community partnerships, perhaps operating on a smaller but more focused basis, feeding into the larger partnerships. Considering the Deputy's point that there are some areas that are much larger and have a more widespread population, one partnership per county will not work or fit, and that is why I have made my decision.

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