Mark Ward (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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178. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the status of the rollout of local community safety partnerships; their status as statutory bodies; if they have referral pathways from local community safety forums and community transport safety forums as did the joint policing committees they replaced; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3729/25]

Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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A key principle of the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland is that community safety requires multi-agency cooperation working in partnership with An Garda Síochána and crucially with communities themselves. The Report recommended the establishment of national and local structures to bring together the relevant departments and State agencies involved in harm prevention to promote community safety.

The objective is to bring the relevant bodies, including the Gardaí, together with communities in a collaborative manner, by focusing on the concerns identified and prioritised by local people.

As the Deputy may be aware, the Policing, Security and Community Safety Act 2024 provides for the establishment of this national infrastructure, central to which are Local Community Safety Partnerships which will operate at each local authority level. The Partnerships are building upon the good work undertaken through Joint Policing Committees and supplementing this by bringing together a broader range of relevant stakeholders including local councillors, An Garda Síochána, local residents, community representatives, business and education representatives, and a range of statutory agencies including the HSE, Tusla and each local authority.

Local elected representatives have an important role to play in the Partnerships, each of which will have seven elected council members as part of its mandated membership. In addition, all local elected representatives will have further opportunity to attend meetings of their local Partnership.

Issues that are considered relevant to the community can be discussed at the Partnerships and the Act also provides for area-based neighbourhood community safety fora to facilitate a tailored, targeted and time-limited approach where issues of concern are arising in a more localised area.