Community safety partnership for Tipp
Appointment for former JPC Chairman Noel Coonan
Tipperary is among the first local authority areas in the country to see the establishment of a Local Community Safety Partnership.
Minister for Justice Helen McEntee this week announced the appointment of seven chairpersons for the new LCSPs, which are to replace the Joint Policing Committee (JPC) bodies that were disbanded earlier this year. Former Chairman of the Tipperary JPC Noel Coonan was announced as chair of the county's new LCSP.
The appointments announced this week follow expressions of interest conducted by each local authority. The newly-appointed chairs will work to develop and manage LCSPs within their respective areas.
The appointments are the first step in the development of a Community Safety Plan in every local authority area. Each partnership is to develop a plan that meets the needs of their community. It will set out the actions to be taken to improve community safety and allow communities to hold local services accountable for implementation of the plan.
The plans will focus on a range of measures from dealing with anti-social behaviour and delivering youth justice measures, to improving refuse collection, street lighting and access to services.
Partnerships will be able to apply for funding from the Community Safety Fund, which was established by Minister McEntee and ensures that the proceeds of crime seized by the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) are reinvested back into communities.
‘ATTACK ON LOCAL DEMOCRACY’
The decision to disband the JPCs was described earlier this year by Mr Coonan as “an attack on local democracy”. Having chaired Tipperary JPC for the last five years, he expressed concern that there would be far fewer public representatives on the new forum.
The former Fine Gael TD, who retired as a member of Tipperary Co Council last June, said news of his appointment to the new LCSP came as a surprise. He understood that there would be a briefing at the Dept of Justice later this week or early next week, at which details of the membership of the new partnerships and their function would become clearer.
“I welcome the opportunity,” Mr Coonan said of chairing the Tipperary partnership. “I do have experience over the years. I have been critical of it over the lack of elected representation on it. But with that in mind, when I got this opportunity, I said: ‘why not take it?’.
“I look forward to working with all the community groups and the elected members, Tipperary Co Council and An Garda Síochána. We'll get together and have a chat and see how we can plan the best way forward for Tipperary to see how we can improve the community service and deliver for the community. It is a challenge that I relish.”
‘RADICAL NEW APPROACH’
Speaking this week on the appointment of Mr Coonan and the other six chairs to their respective LCSPs, Minister McEntee described the move as “a radical new approach to community safety, which will empower communities to implement new initiatives to improve local safety and to hold service providers to account on agreed actions. It will bring together the full range of stakeholders in each community, including residents, voluntary groups, public representatives and state agencies.”
Minister McEntee said steps are being taken at national level to significantly grow the size of An Garda Síochána and the Garda reserve, to increase the use of CCTV, roll out body-worn cameras and introduce facial recognition technology as part of the fight against crime. “At a local level, community safety partnerships will play a key role in working with not just An Garda Síochána, but with other public bodies to ensure they are taking action to make our communities safer,” she said. “Bad public lighting, waste collection, poor planning of public spaces, the location of services, all contribute to feelings of safety in our towns and cities.
“This new approach allows communities to set out a plan to ensure every body is taking necessary actions, and the Government will back these plans with funding through the Community Safety Fund, which I intend to continue to grow year on year.”
In addition to Tipperary, LCSP chairpersons have been appointed in Kildare, Leitrim, Louth, South Dublin, Sligo and Longford. The LCSP model has already been piloted in Longford, Waterford and Dublin's North East Inner City. Minister McEntee said the trials have “shown how the model can succeed in different settings and contexts”.