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Plans are in the pipeline for a new anonymous text service alerting Killarney Gardai to trouble in the town.

Following the success of the 'See Something, Say Something' campaign in Tralee, which was launched last July, Superintendent Flor Murphy who is in charge of the Killarney Garda District, told the Joint Policing Committee on Friday that plans are underway for a similar service in Killarney town.

The 'See Something, Say Something’ campaign was an initiative by Tralee Chamber Alliance in partnership with An Garda Síochána - and the first of its kind in Ireland.

It allows members of the public who ‘see something’ that might need Garda intervention, to ‘say something’ by texting TRALEE and the incident details to 50555.

And at Friday’s JPC meeting which was held in County Buildings, it was revealed that the campaign has been a huge success to date.

According to Superintendent Murphy, plans are in place to roll it out in Killarney town in the coming months.

“Last week I sat down with the Killarney Chamber to progress this,” Superintendent Murphy told the JPC.

"They got a presentation in terms of the benefits and the issues involved.”

He said that the Chamber will be ultimately financing it.

"They are actively considering the proposal at the moment. It’s important to point out that this doesn’t take away from the 999 system. This is an anonymous means of conveying information to us. The existing 999 system for emergency response in terms of crimes being committed will still be there. This provides another means of providing information to us and ultimately it means we have more eyes and ears out there in the community. It is being actively considered and hopefully will be progressed in Killarney.”

Mayor of Killarney Cllr John Sheahan, Cllr Donal O'Grady and Cllr Brendan Cronin welcomed the initiative.

“I think it’s a great idea, anything that makes our community safer,” Donal O’Grady said.

Cllr Cronin said he could see the service being 'an absolute asset’ to the town.

"Information is the key and if you’re getting it then you’re in a position to assess and to act upon it,” he said.

Cllr Quigley also asked for something similar to be rolled out in Killorglin.