The Louth councillor says unlike Joint Policing Committees, the new model is very centralised and civil service based.
A Louth Fianna Fáil councillor has hit out at her party over the make up of Local Community Safety Partnerships, which are replacing Joint Policing Committees.
Emma Coffey said Fianna Fáil had dropped the ball during a discussion at the Dundalk Municipal District's monthly meeting yesterday evening, where its Chairman Fine Gael Cllr Robert Nash and Fianna Fáil councillor Andrea McKevitt were chosen as nominees for the Louth Community Safety Partnership.
Previously councillors were represented on the Dundalk, Drogheda and Ardee JPCs, but the new model only provides for two from each municipal district along with the Cathaoirleach of Louth County Council.
Independent Maeve Yore and Sinn Féin's Sionnainn McCann were also proposed but under a voting pact involving Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Independent Ciaran Fisher, they missed out on the nomination.
Cllr Coffey says she has concerns about the implications of the new model:
"I'm very disappointed in it. The JPC was a solid foundation with legislation approach, it was council led, it was councillor led I should say and there was great collaboration in it.
I am not saying that there won't be the same collegiality but there is no grounding - no legislative grounding of the role that the councillors had in this.
A lot of people come to us with concerns about anti-social behaviour, with concerns about drug dealing, with concerns about, you know, people might say the minor end of things but things that impact on communities and our role in relation to where we were compared to the JPC is on a marginalised aspect.
The model I have a concern about is very centralised based, it is very civil service based, it is not community oriented based as the JPC was.
Now, if I am wrong I will hold my hands up but I am very disappointed about Fianna Fáil's position on it and might I add at the last Ard Fhéis it was voiced very very strongly, they had a session on the new policing committees and it was voiced very strongly by councillors up and down the country from Fianna Fáil, who voiced these concerns, this is not just Emma Coffey, a lone wolf, this is a collective body that again councillors are being stripped, or their role is being marginalised, and you know when it's gone that's when you miss it.
There is nothing stopping the interested bodies, and I am not saying they would do this, but there is no legal obligation for them to report to the councillors."
