Lisa Chambers (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The issue arose many months ago. We have been many months working on this and using every avenue available to us to engage with the Department, the Minister, my party leader and other colleagues. Any suggestion that somehow we have not been working on this is not factually correct. That is borne out in the timelines and our engagement with the councillor representative organisations. As I said, having spoken to the AILG this morning, I know it is very happy to engage with the regulations. The Minister has given a full commitment, on the record, and Senator Boyhan often points out the importance of having things on the record, that she is happy to engage with councillor groups, Senators, Deputies and other stakeholders in putting those regulations together. That gives us ample opportunity to work out the nuts and bolts of how these will work at a community level.

Councillors' positions on the new local community safety partnerships will be maintained and they will have the numbers they need. Having up to 17 potential members of local authorities on them is, I think we can agree, a very welcome development. This is the democratic process. The issue did not get picked up in the Dáil because it was looking at other aspects of the Bill. It is worth acknowledging the Bill is nearly 300 pages long. It is huge and many issues in it are being raised by Members of both Houses. It is not fair to cast aspersions on colleagues in the other House because this did not get picked up there. It got picked up here and has been resolved. That is the important part of this.