Catherine Callaghan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)

I thank the Minister very much for his answer. As he says, See Something, Say Something is a really good initiative. The national roll-out of it is committed to in the programme for Government. It is a community initiative which enables the public to text details of illegal dumping, antisocial behaviour and other incidents directly to the authorities, as the Minister said. It is designed to support crime prevention and community safety. The initiative has been warmly received in all the locations it has been introduced in so far, with An Garda Síochána in Louth in particular noting that the service provided a welcome means of communicating with the public and with enhancing the services ongoing community engagement. The Minister can therefore imagine why I would like to see this initiative effectively rolled out to my constituents, and indeed to the Leas-Cheann Comhairle’s as well, in Carlow and Kilkenny. According to the Meath experience of the initiative, it seems the local community safety partnerships are seen as the best way to roll out the initiative at present. The LCSPs in Carlow and Kilkenny should be coming online at the end of the month and I wonder whether the Minister would support a call to see this initiative being made an early priority for all local community safety partnerships.

See this speech in context