Policing body in Laois renamed ‘Community Safety Partnership’

A NEWLY named ‘Local Community Safety Partnership’ that replaced Joint Policing Committees (JPC) will come into operation within the next few weeks.

Laois County Council is charged with overseeing the partnership in the county and are now organising staff to have the body up and running in the county.

In Laois JPCs held four meetings every year. One of these was open to the public and allowed them to pose questions on policing issues affecting them and their locality.

Cllr James Kelly raised the issue over the lack of JPC meetings at the March meeting of Laois County Council, and asked that the newly established body be convened as quickly as possible.

He said: “The alarm bells have been ringing for a while because our last JPC meeting was in April 2024. JPCs play a very important part in our community. It’s important that we have such a structure in place where we can bring together the local authority, the elected members, community groups and those they represent, and especially the gardaí. The meetings ensure that people are held to account. People can voice their concerns and their questions are answered.

“JPCs were set up so that people can feel safe in their own communities. But that has stalled. The safety of people in all our towns, villages and rural communities are a top priority for all elected representatives, as it is for community groups and the gardaí.”

 Cllr Kelly said: “We all know that crime in evolving and we’ve seen the rise in serious criminal activity. Criminals are now more organised. They are exploiting gaps in the policing of our county and of our state and the lack of JPC meetings was one of those gaps they exploited.

“At every JPC meeting, gardaí presented statistics and updated us on their resources, the crime figures and their prevention measures. However, most councillors received an email from a private company over the weekend hoping to set up an initiative hoping to help communities understand crime rates and the public’s concerns.

“I wouldn’t be in favour of these type of companies. What they’re going to do is open up forums, where it could be the place that dangerous actors could be filling in the void on social media and elsewhere. We could be getting a lot of false information from these as well. That is why I put in the notice of motion (to convene the Local Community Safety Partnership as quickly as possible). It’s a priority and something that has to happen as soon as possible.”

Cllr Caroline Dwane Stanley said: “I know that anyone can ring the gardaí at any time if they need to, but the county policing forum is badly missed. The gardaí issued reports and statistics and flagged up issues.” 

Cllr Kelly asked was the property ID marking machine that was purchased for the use of the community in Laois still operational and available to local groups?

He was informed that the machine is held by Laois Public Participation Network and has been in use across the county over the past 12 months. Gardaí also promote the machine at their community engagement meetings and had it on display at last year’s National Ploughing Championships in the Garda tent. It is also planned to have the machine at this month’s Live Well Expo in Portlaoise to raise awareness about the availability of it.