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

While the regulations are not finalised, what is being worked through at the moment is a proposal that there would be 30 members of each community safety partnership, 20 of whom would be from specific designated bodies, including elected members of the local authority, the HSE, Tusla, An Garda Síochána and the local authorities themselves. There will also be a representative from the community, who could be a member of the local drug and alcohol task force and, in addition, an education representative and a youth representative. There will also be a separate space for four more community representatives, including minority group representatives, which gives another opportunity for a member from the local drug and alcohol task force.Then there are a whole other number of members where it is not specified. There are a number of times when there could be a member of the local drug and alcohol task force on the community safety partnership. There is not necessarily a drug and alcohol task force everywhere. The public service bodies are the statutory bodies that have been named here, not specifically drug and alcohol task forces, which would be stood up or stood down or are not necessarily there all the time in every county or every area. The focus in this section is on the statutory bodies that are there and that have to be there and that will be part of this. As regards the community safety partnerships, there will be multiple roles in which a member of the task force can fill that position and contribute. The whole point of the partnerships is that they are flexible. What one county might need might be completely different from what another might need. There might be a massive drug and alcohol problem in a particular area of a county and it is decided at the outset that there must be a member of the drug and alcohol task force represented on the committee. There is nothing to stop that from happening. The whole purpose of this is that it is flexible and adaptable to the environment, the population of the county at hand or the requirements of the particular population setting up the partnership and the plan.