Mary Fitzpatrick (Fianna Fail)

I too welcome the visitors from Ringsend. It is opportune that the Minister would take this Commencement matter while his constituents are in the House. Ladies, you are most welcome.

This morning I ask that the Minister update the House on the community safety partnerships that are due to be rolled out in the 31 local authorities. In the previous Oireachtas term, the Minister for Justice brought through the House the Policing, Security and Community Safety Act 2024. I and my colleagues in Fianna Fáil supported that legislation and worked very hard to secure in that legislation a commitment from the Minister that when the community safety partnerships would be established the regulations would stipulate that the local elected representatives in each of the local authorities would have strong representation on the partnerships and that the partnerships, once established, would have as their chairpersons members elected to the relevant local authorities. The reason I and my Fianna Fáil colleagues worked very hard to secure that commitment from the Minister for Justice is that we understand it is incredibly important that all our communities feel safe, with safe places to live, to work and to visit, and that young children, their families and our senior citizens all feel they live in a safe environment. The Minister has taken great strides to increase garda numbers, and we commend him on that and on his plans to increase prison places and the proposal to potentially introduce electronic tagging. These are all really good initiatives, and the Garda is to be commended and the Minister's work and his Department's work are to be supported, but community engagement is incredibly important because we cannot have a garda on every single corner and every street at every hour of the day. It is just not practical, it is not possible and none of us want to live in a police state. We want community safety partnerships that reflect the community concerns and the concerns that people encounter in their daily business, going to the shops, maybe antisocial behaviour they witness that is intimidating and discouraging people from going out and using their local public places.

I would like the Minister to update the House today on when the community safety partnerships will be implemented and up and operational and the membership of those community safety partnerships, and that they will have members elected from their local communities, the local authority members. They are the people who get the complaints, the people on the front line listening to residents and community groups and understanding where antisocial behaviour is happening and where crime is taking place. They can inform and should be the ones informing the agenda for each of the local community safety partnerships. They should be in a position to put themselves forward and be selected as the chairs of those community safety partnerships.Will the Minister provide clarity on the arrangements to be put in place for the capital? We have four local authorities in Dublin. It is the capital. The Minister has put significant priority on increasing safety in the capital. I welcome and support that and I believe these arrangements will greatly enhance potential for increasing community safety in the capital and in each of the 31 local authorities. I look forward to the Minister's update.