Media to remain barred from Mayo community policing meetings
Mayo County Council tell councillors that policy not to invite media to Mayo Local Community Safety Partnership meetings to remain in place
Mayo County Council have informed local councillors that members and the public and the media will remain barred from attending meetings of the Mayo Local Community Safety Partnership.
The Mayo Local Community Safety Partnership (MLCSP) was eventually formed earlier this year after months of delays but since then all meetings have taken place behind closed doors with members of the public and the media permitted from attending.
The MLCSP is a new, statutory, multi-agency body which replaced the Joint Policing Committees and brings together residents, community groups, state services such as Gardaí, HSE and Tusla, and local councillors to identify and address local safety issues.
A notice of motion proposed by Independent councillor Michael Kilcoyne and co-signed by 15 other councillors will come before Monday's monthly meeting of Mayo County Council where they have called for the MLCSP to 'lift its embargo on the local media from covering meetings and that all meetings of the Partnership be open to the media going forward and not restricted to one per year as proposed'.
However, in a response to the notice of motion, the councillors were informed that there are no plans to make meetings of the MLCSP open to the media or the public.
“As a newly formed and independent entity the MLCSP has decided that during its first year, while the Community Safety Plan is being considered and adopted, and in order to take time to build trust and relationships within the new partnership, attendance by the media at MLCSP meetings will be limited.
“The LCSP has indicated that during this time a press release summarising key discussions and decisions will be issued within 24 hours of each meeting and a public meeting, open to the public and media, will be held in Q4 2026,” the statement read.
The councillors also called for the council executive to ensure that the local media is invited to attend and report on all the council’s Strategic Policy Committee meetings as a matter of course.
Following the local elections in 2024, it was proposed that all meetings of the six SPCs would be closed to the media with the Chief Executive Kevin Kelly telling councillors that he believes that SPC's will operate to their potential better without media present.
However, following a backlash from councillors the majority of the SPCs decided upon themselves to allow the media to report on them but some still don't invite the media to attend.
In a response to the councillors, the council stated that it was decided that each SPC would make its own determination on the attendance of the media at its meetings and 'it would appear that the media are already in attendance at SPC meetings'.