Emmet Stagg (Kildare North, Labour)
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Question 448: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government if he intends to continue the pilot community warden service in Naas, County Kildare in 2006. [39870/05]

Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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Naas Town Council is one of five local authorities where the community warden service has been piloted since 2002. The others are Galway City Council, Galway County Council, Leitrim County Council and Wexford County Council. I am pleased to say that, while the pilot phase of the scheme will end with the cessation of the contracts of employment of existing community wardens, I have agreed arrangements for putting the scheme on a more permanent footing in each of the five pilot local authority areas. The relevant local authorities have been informed accordingly.

Where a pilot local authority decides to establish a full time community warden scheme, my Department will continue to provide funding on the following basis: 2006 — the Department to provide 66% of the net cost of the service, that is, cost less revenue; 2007 — the Department to provide 33% of the net cost of the service, that is, cost less revenue; and thereafter, the full cost of the service to be borne by the local authority.