Joint Policing Committees
Dail Éireann — 2026-03-19
============================================================

Niall Collins (FF), Limerick County

The Government is committed to the principle that everyone, wherever they live in Ireland, should be able to feel safe. Building safe and secure communities by investing in An Garda Síochána is a top priority for the Government. However, the introduction of local community safety partnerships around the country represents a new and more collaborative approach to community safety. They are an important step towards a more collaborative, responsive and locally driven model of public safety. The safety partnerships bring together a broad range of relevant stakeholders to address community issues in their area, including residents, community representatives, business and education representatives, local councillors and a range of public services, including senior representatives of the HSE, Tusla, An Garda Síochána and local authorities. The Deputy will appreciate this is much broader than the membership of the previous joint policing committees.
One of the premises behind this partnership approach is that every community is different, as the Deputy has said. Membership in each safety partnership is configured to give the broadest representation across the relevant State actors and demographic and community interests in the local area in order to achieve the safest outcomes.
Each local partnership will be responsible for developing a tailored and prioritised plan specific to that area, in conjunction with the community and the relevant public services. The intention is to build the capacity of local residents and the community to contribute meaningfully to the local community safety partnership and grow local leadership and participation. This structure will ensure that communities have a strong say in what actions are prioritised by the services operating in their area. They will also have a key oversight role in ensuring those actions are followed through.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-03-19/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:45+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-03-19