Written answers
Tuesday, 29 July 2025
Department of Justice and Equality
Local Community Safety Partnerships
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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2015. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the number of community safety audits carried out in Wicklow from 2020 to 2025, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42115/25]
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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2019. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality when the community policing forum will be operational in Wicklow; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42119/25]
Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 2015 and 2019 together.
Community safety is about people being safe and, importantly, feeling safe in their own communities. At the heart of this policy is the principle that every community has the right to be and feel safe in order to thrive and flourish.
I understand that community safety audits refer to a practice of local people moving through their community to identify where people may feel safe, where they may not feel safe, and to propose solutions. Traditionally, Joint Policing Committees (JPCs) have provided one forum where these issues could be discussed. Alternatively, members of a community would raise these issues directly with local members of An Garda Síochána. or, indeed, their local Community Gardaí. Given the nature of these interactions, I am not in a position to provide figures in relation to the number of community safety audits carried out in Wicklow.
A key principle of the Report 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 Commission's report recommended the establishment of national and local structures to bring together Departments and State agencies involved in harm prevention, alongside representatives of the local community, to promote community safety. These local and national structures are provided for in legislation through the Policing, Security and Community Safety Act which I enacted earlier this year.
Local Community Safety Partnerships (LCSPs), the establishment of which is provided for in this Act, will replace and build upon the good work of the Joint Policing Committees, supplementing this by bringing together a broader range of relevant stakeholders. This will include 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.
The Partnerships are the cornerstone of our policy on community safety and so it is vital we get them up and running so that they can begin work on the development of a community safety plan for their respective areas.
Last month I signed the regulations for the LCSPs and these came into operation on Monday, 30 June. This now paves the way for a total of 36 partnerships to be established across the country with partnerships in each local authority administrative area, including Wicklow.
LCSPs will be supported by the National Office for Community Safety. This office has statutory functions in relation to providing support, training, and guidance to partnerships, monitoring the implementation of local community safety plans and commissioning research and evaluations regarding the operation of LCSPs.
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