Jim O'Keeffe (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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Question 221: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the amount of money that has been grant aided to local communities for the provision of closed circuit television cameras in line with An Agreed Programme for Government Between Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats 2002; and the number of CCTV cameras installed in each year from 2002 to date in 2007. [13130/07]

Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)
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The Programme for Government contains a commitment to extend the use of CCTV and to also to grant aid communities to fund them. In tandem with the Garda based CCTV scheme, I launched the Community-based CCTV Scheme in June 2005, in response to a demonstrated demand from local communities across Ireland for the provision of CCTV systems. This Scheme is designed to provide financial assistance to qualifying local organisations towards meeting capital costs associated with the establishment of local community CCTV systems. The Scheme offers both pre-development grants of up to €5,000 to enable qualifying applicants to investigate the need for CCTV in their area and to complete a detailed proposal, and substantial grants of up to €100,000 from my Department to install a CCTV system in their area. In addition, the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs provides successful applicants from RAPID areas with a further grant to a possible maximum of €100,000. Pobal has been engaged to administer the Scheme on behalf of this Department and it carries carry out thorough assessments of all applications received.

Interest in the first round of the Scheme, which concluded in September 2005, was quite high with 24 successful groups receiving pre-development grants totalling €115,665 which were paid in 2006. A total of 13 successful groups were also approved to receive substantive grants totalling €1 million, to be matched in RAPID areas by the Department of Community, Rural & Gaeltacht Affairs. Payment of these grants commenced in October 2006 and the supply, delivery and installation of cameras has recently begun and is currently in progress.

Pobal invited the 24 groups who received pre-development grants to submit Stage 2 proposals by 31st January 2007. Twenty of these groups submitted proposals and 11 groups were approved to receive grants totalling in excess of €1 million, again to be matched in RAPID areas by the Department of Community, Rural & Gaeltacht Affairs. The final amounts involved will be determined subject to the finalisation of contracts.

The first of the Community-based schemes to receive funding is in the Moyross area of Limerick. To date five cameras have been delivered for this scheme; these are currently being installed and are expected to be up and running this week. These cameras complement an earlier community CCTV scheme which has been in operation in the Moyross area for some time.

In addition, a new round of funding under the Community Based CCTV Scheme was advertised in December 2006 with a closing date for receipt of applications of 28 February 2007. Interest in this second Round of the Scheme is also very high with 50 groups applying for pre-development grants and 27 groups applying directly for substantive funding. Pobal are currently evaluating these proposals and expect to be in a position to make their recommendations on successful pre-development applications by mid-April. The substantive proposals will take somewhat longer to evaluate and Pobal are expected to make recommendations on these by mid-May.