Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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Question 287: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform if he will provide details of the knife crime campaign; the organisers contracted to run the campaign; the budget for the campaign; the timeframe of same; the locations of the road show; the methods of advertising and promoting the campaign; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [7555/09]

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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While the number of murders committed involving knives showed a welcome decrease last year from 37 to 15, the overall number of crimes committed using knives is a matter of concern. On 5 February, the Garda Commissioner and I launched a Knife Awareness Campaign by An Garda Síochána with the objective of informing and educating young people on the dangers of carrying knives and with the aim of reducing the number of incidents of knife crime.

It is planned that the campaign will include meetings in schools and community centres around the country featuring local sports stars and role models for young people. One meeting was held last December as a pilot project in The Base, Ballyfermot. The location of the remaining meetings will be decided in the light of information on the areas that show higher than average levels of knife crime. The roll out of meetings will be supported by print and broadcast media initiatives that will be designed to be specific to the locality of the meeting. Further meetings will be carried out by Community Gardaí around the country who will be equipped with resources, with the aim of maximising the reach of the campaign through school visits.

The campaign will be supported online by a dedicated website www.howbigdoyoufeel.ie and a presence on social networking websites such as Bebo, Facebook and Twitter, as well as uploaded videos and a viral video. This will help deliver the campaign message through media that its target audience find accessible and feel comfortable with. Information leaflets on the campaign will also be made available to young people and their parents. The campaign is also due to feed into other programmes which support youth workers on youth diversion projects, thereby enabling the campaign message to reach at-risk young people. It is expected that the cost of the campaign will be approximately €200,000.