Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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75. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality if existing community CCTV schemes are precluded from funding under the community safety partnership funding stream; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [35737/22]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy may be aware, three Local Community Safety Partnerships are currently being piloted over 24 months in North Inner City Dublin, Waterford and Longford. These locations allow the proposed structure to be trialed in a high population density area, a medium population density area and a low population density area, with a regional distribution. The pilots are subject to independent evaluation, with learning outcomes taken into account in the drafting of the statutory framework for community safety and applied to the national roll out of similar partnerships in communities across the country.

Membership of these Local Community Safety Partnerships includes representatives from relevant public services including the HSE, Tusla, An Garda Síochána, local authorities and councillors as well as residents and community groups, representatives of youth, new communities and the voluntary, business and education sectors.

The pilots are each chaired by an independent chairperson and each pilot is also supported by a dedicated staff member - the local community safety coordinator - whose role is to support the Partnership, engage the residents in the community on safety issues and link them in with the work of the Partnership.

The three pilot LCSPs have received funding for the provision of administrative support to undertake their work by my Department through the Dormant Accounts Fund. In addition, in recognition of the scale and complexity of the work of the North Inner City Dublin Partnership, additional funding was made available from the North East Inner City (NEIC) initiative and from my Department.

Each Local Community Safety Partnership will develop a Local Community Safety Plan which will identify actions and the Department or Agency with responsibility for fulfilling these actions. Support to implement these actions will come from existing budget allocations.

Local Community Safety Partnerships may also apply for funding for additional community safety interventions through the new Community Safety Innovation Fund, the establishment of which is provided for in Budget 2022. It is intended that this fund will support investment in projects which propose an innovative approach to improve community safety and which aren’t already covered under the costing funding streams. The fund, which is expected to grow in the coming years, has an initial outlay in 2022 of €2m. The call for applications for 2022 closed on 8 June. The process of initial eligibility assessment and scoring of the applications is ongoing and will continue through the summer. I expect that grants will be made to the successful applicants in the autumn.

Under the criteria of the fund, the applications for capital funding costs will only be considered if they are integral to a proposal itself and appropriately apportioned. Applications for capital costs alone are not eligible. The maintenance and expansion of an existing community CCTV scheme would therefore not be eligible. However, the Department also administers a Community Based CCTV Grand Aid Scheme. The scheme is intended to support local communities wishing to install and maintain CCTV security systems in their area, with the aim of increasing public safety and deterring illegal or anti-social behaviour.

Further information is available on my Department's website at the following link www.justice.ie/en/JELR/Pages/Community_based_CCTV_grant_aid_scheme_Information_and_Documentation