Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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My Department's community safety policy is about people being safe and, importantly, feeling safe in their own community. This whole of government Community Safety Strategy aims to address issues relating to community safety by bringing together the relevant social service providers and the Gardaí to work together with the community in a collaborative manner by focusing on tackling the concerns identified by the local community itself.

The Local Community Safety Partnerships are provided for in Part 3 of the Policing, Security and Community Safety Act 2024, which was recently approved by the Oireachtas and will be commenced during 2024. The Partnerships will operate at local authority level and they will replace Joint Policing Committees (JPCs). The Partnerships will have a wider membership than JPCs and will include residents, local councillors, community representatives (including representatives of young people, older people, new and minority communities), business and education representatives and a range of public services including the HSE, Tusla, AGS and the local authority.

Pilot partnerships have been running in Longford, Waterford and Dublin's North Inner City, and each has published a local community safety plan, which are available on the respective local authority websites. The plans set out a number of agreed actions to be undertaken by the members of the partnerships to enhance community safety in that area. The independent chairs of the pilot partnerships are overseeing the delivery of those agreed actions.

An independent evaluation has been running since the pilot partnerships commenced, and the report of the evaluation is now being finalised. Findings of the evaluation will be used to inform the national roll-out of Local Community Safety Partnerships.