James Bannon (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Question 289: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the steps he is taking to alleviate the problem facing Longford Town, which has been allocated a grant of €184,000 for the installation of closed circuit television but are unable to advance this project due to a requirement that it is approved by a joint policing committee which Longford does not have. [4005/08]

Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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Under the Community-based CCTV scheme run by my Department I announced the award of grant funding to Longford Town Council to assist the town council with the capital costs associated with the development of a local CCTV system. The overarching aim of the scheme is to empower local groups, in partnership with the local authorities and An Garda Síochána, to develop their own CCTV systems.

In accordance with the Garda Síochána Act 2005, applications for authorisation for community CCTV must be approved by the Joint Policing Committee for the relevant local authority area. The 29 Joint Policing Committees currently established on a pilot phase operate under guidelines issued by my predecessor in May 2007. The purpose of the pilot phase is to gain experience from the operation of a number of committees in a variety of local authority areas before rolling them out to all local authority areas in the State. In general, the outcome to date has been positive and the committees are meeting definite local needs.

Following completion of the evaluation of the operation of the committees in the pilot phase revised guidelines will be drafted, taking into account the outcome of the evaluation and the experience of the pilot committees. Following consultations with my colleagues the Ministers for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs I intend to issue, as soon as possible, revised guidelines to enable roll-out of the committees to all local authority areas in the State including Longford. The guidelines will provide inter alia a timetable for the roll-out.