Waterford community safety group criticises move by other counties to meet behind closed doors

‘Sunshine is the best disinfectant,’ the chair of the committee said this week.

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These new groups – made up of gardaí, councillors and representatives from other State agencies – have been convened by councils to replace the old Joint Policing Committees.

However, many will largely be held behind closed doors , except one meeting per year that is required to be held in public.

Journalists were able to cover the now-defunct Joint Policing Committees, which the Local Community Safety Partnerships (LCSPs) have replaced.

Committees in Galway, Limerick, Laois, Wexford, Clare and Mayo are all set to mainly sit in private in the first full year of the new system. This is the same for Leitrim, South Dublin, Kerry, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown and Meath.

At its first public meeting following a period as one of three pilot committees formed by the Department of Justice, members of the Waterford LCSP said it was important for their work to be done in public to try and inform the wider community about their efforts.

During the meeting at Waterford’s Granville Hotel this week, Chairperson Sean Aylward said that “transparency” was important for the committee.

Aylward added that this led him to propose opening the committee to the media at an earlier meeting.

Aylward—a former secretary general of the Department of Justice—said that “sunshine is the best disinfectant,” explaining it would help bolster the group’s work.

He was responding to Independent councillor Joe Kelly who said it was “refreshing to have members of the press” present, after a period when the committee met in private to finetune processes.

This included the decision on whether it would work in public or private.

Kelly told the meeting that he had read reports outlining that many other committees across the country would be taking place “almost exclusively” behind closed doors, which he said was wrong.

“I am delighted that we in our own grouping decided that as far as possible should be in public,” Kelly said.

“We do our business in public and the media has a very important role informing the public about what the partnership is about and what we’re trying to achieve.”

He added that the work of the committee is “strenghtened” by meeting in public.

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