Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 29 March 2022
111. Deputy Michael Creed asked the Minister for Justice when she plans to roll out a community safety partnership in every county; and the role the community safety innovation fund will play in their development. [16091/22]
View answerAs the Deputy will be aware, I announced the establishment of three pilot Local Community Safety Partnerships in November 2020. These pilots schemes have been set up in Longford, North Inner City Dublin and Waterford. The pilots will run for a period of two years, and learnings from the pilot LCSPs will inform the eventual rollout of the model to every local authority area.
The Community Safety Partnerships will be rolled out nationally following enactment of the Policing, Security and Community Safety Bill, completion of the three pilots and related monitoring and evaluation processes. I made a commitment to ensure a robust evaluation from the outset of this process. The overall aim of the evaluation is to provide actionable evidence to help inform the development of the LCSPs and their rollout across the country.
Minister McGrath and I agreed the establishment of the Community Safety Innovation Fund to reflect the success of the Criminal Assets Bureau and other agencies by using money seized from the proceeds of crime to support investment in community safety projects. I secured an initial funding allocation for the Innovation Fund of €2 million in Budget 2022, and it is expected that the fund will continue to grow in the coming years, subject to the standard Budgetary processes.
A call for funding proposals will issue shortly seeking applications for community safety projects and similar initiatives from bodies involved in community safety, such as the new Local Community Safety Partnerships and the Drogheda Implementation Board, as well as similar entities nationwide.
Applications will be assessed against stated criteria outlined in the call for proposals to ensure funding is allocated to encourage the development of innovative ways in which to improve community safety. These criteria for allocating funding are now finalised, with the fund due to be launched in the coming weeks.
