Kildare Safety Partnership to address mental health & drug issues
Áras Chill Dara
The Kildare Local Community Safety Partnership (LCSP) held its’ second meeting on 2 April.
The members of the LCSP received a presentation from representatives of the Waterford LCSP pilot project on their experience of establishing one of the first LCSPs in the country.
The Waterford LCSP pilot was set up in 2021 before concluding in 2024. It transitioned from pilot to statutory, with the inaugural meeting of the Waterford LCSP being held in November 2025.
Speaking to the after the meeting, Kildare LCSP’s chairperson cllr Angela Feeney explained that the Waterford representatives were selected to come and present rather than representatives from the other LCSP pilots (Dublin’s North Inner City and Longford) due to the demographic similarities in the two counties, with Kildare and Waterford both having “a bit of an urban-rural divide”.
She further detailed that the co-ordinator of the Waterford LCSP Eddie Mulligan described how some projects in Waterford’s safety plan have already been completed whilst some are more long-term.
Mr Mulligan advised the Kildare group to take on projects “that you can do immediately”.
Cllr Feeney noted how it came across that the Waterford LCSP was successful in engaging with young people and aimed to ensure that the whole county benefited from the safety plan and from projects set up by the LCSP.
Cllr Feeney also noted that the Waterford group have tackled challenging topics and areas such as consent and domestic violence.
The next meeting of the Kildare LCSP is set to take place on 7 May, where there will be a workshop focused on the initial phase of the partnership’s strategic plan. Cllr Feeney said that a facilitator will be present at the meeting to talk the group through how to devise a safety plan and how to organise the plan in a thematic way.
Cllr Feeney said that one area that the Kildare LCSP intends to focus on is mental health, with feedback from community workers suggesting the importance of this.
“Our community workers in the chamber regularly come back to us to let us know the work that they're doing. And at our most recent presentation from our community workers, they flagged that the biggest area of concern for them in the areas are mental health.”
Cllr Feeney said that an important step in addressing mental health will be to create spaces for people to become engaged in their communities.
Cllr Feeney also noted the importance of addressing the “growing drug problem” through “awareness, prevention, and support”.
If you have been affected by this article, please contact The Samaritans on freephone 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.ie
