A member of the newly formed Local Community Safety Partnership (LCSP) in Mayo, is to write to the Chair of the new partnership to insist that the media are not excluded from any of its gatherings.
The new LCSP replaces the former county Joint Policing Committee (JPC), and is designed to highlight and tackle law and order issues in the county, and it has controversially agreed to meet behind closed doors without a media presence for all of its quarterly meetings this year, with just a single exception.
Fine Gael councillor Donna Sheridan is a member of LCSP Mayo, but was unable to attend the first meeting, however, she wants the matter raised at the start of the next meeting of the partnership. She is writing to the Chairperson Cllr Michael Loftus to insist on the same, and if it takes a vote at the start of the next meeting to secure that outcome, than she wants a vote to be taken.
Cllr Sheridan says that anything less than media participation in publicly funded meetings looks like ” an attempt to control the narrative”.
Midwest News Editor Teresa O’Malley asked councillor Sheidan if she believes the media in any way threatens the LCSP, and requires restricted access to its gatherings….
