Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 27 Oct 2004

Vol. 591 No. 1

Childhood Development Initiative: Motion.

Mr. Rabbitte

I wish to share time with Deputies Burton, O'Sullivan and Upton. I move:

That Dáil Éireann,

—welcomes the report of the Tallaght West Childhood Development Initiative;

—expresses its concern at the serious picture of inequality and social deprivation in some areas of west Tallaght depicted in the report, especially in view of the unprecedented economic growth experienced by the country over the past decade;

—acknowledges the successes of the broader community in west Tallaght and commends, in particular, the efforts of many individuals and community and voluntary organisations to improve the opportunities and living conditions of the communities; and

—believes that the conditions depicted in the report are replicated in other disadvantaged communities throughout the country and, in this regard, notes the finding of the recent report published by the Children's Research Centre, Trinity College, that the number of children living in housing that is overcrowded, damp, in disrepair and in poor neighbourhoods had more than doubled in the years between 1991 and 2002;

calls on the Government to use the Budget to respond positively to the recommendations in the Child Development Initiative Report and, in particular, to:

(a) address the factors that leave 90% of children in fear of the effects of anti-social behaviour;

(b) implement divisional status for the Tallaght Garda region which has been stalled since 1997;

(c) expand programmes designed to improve early school provision and specifically to expand the number of childcare places;

(d) enable the local authorities to accelerate a comprehensive programme of refurbishment of public housing stock and, in particular, to commit to the installation of central heating within a reasonable time frame;

(e) resource the local authorities to improve the environment in the estates surveyed;

(f) restore the RAPID programme in order to fund in 2005 the plans submitted by this and other areas targeted in the original announcement in 2001.

On the face of it this may appear to be a specific motion about one particular area of Dublin which I am privileged to represent. The Government, it would appear, considers it is a motion that falls to be answered by a particular Minister, the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs. Neither conclusion is correct. Fundamentally, this is a motion about inequality in post-Celtic tiger Ireland which requires to be addressed by several Ministers, in particular the Ministers for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Health and Children, Education and Science and the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. The motion is based on research, the first of its kind, the findings of which also need to be comprehensively addressed by the Minister with responsibility for children.

Whereas the immediate peg on which this motion is hung is the innovative research conducted on behalf of an amalgam of community organisations in west Tallaght called the Childhood Development Initiative nobody would suggest that its findings are unique to that part of Tallaght. The conclusions of the separate study by the Children's Research Centre at Trinity College dramatically bears out that point. The central finding in that report, that the number of children living in housing that is overcrowded, damp, in disrepair and in poor neighbourhoods had more than doubled in the years between 1991 and 2002, is shocking. The report, Housing Problems and Irish Children, found that 50,000 children were living in such housing in 2002, an increase of more than 100% since 1991.

These results almost perfectly coincide with the best economic years we have experienced since the State was founded. In so far as the motion refers to specific findings in respect of the community comprising over 21,000 people in west Tallaght who were the subject of this survey, the very existence of the Childhood Development Initiative is a testament to the vitality of that community. The CDI is a consortium comprising no less than 20 community and professional groups, statutory and voluntary, indigenous to the area and committed to the objective of delivering change in the areas of education, care for children and families in the area. There is a great sense of justifiable pride in this flowering of community participation and in what has been achieved to date often in the face of adversity.

According to the Government's own yardstick of measurement at the time the RAPID programme was thought up, there are at a minimum 25 areas of urban Ireland where disadvantage has been similarly clustered and where similar under-provision has been made in terms of services, amenities and facilities. Having outlined the vitality and progress made by these communities in west Tallaght, everyone concerned has to confront some of the stark findings in the CDI report. This is also a community under stress, a community that has had to cope with neglect and disadvantage since the day the first batch of houses was built, a community to which officialdom has since the beginning turned a blind eye. The roots of the disadvantage from which west Tallaght, like so many other urban communities, suffers lie in bad planning, and that disadvantage is now very deep rooted.

The report of the Tallaght west childhood development initiative, and therefore this motion, is about three issues above all. First and foremost, it is about children. If we take the report as representing a microcosm of disadvantage, there are children who, in the midst of the greatest prosperity this country has ever known, face a lifetime of hopelessness and despair if we do not act. One in three households is headed up by a lone parent, one in three children is bullied at school, 90% of children live in fear of anti-social behaviour perpetrated by organised gangs of young thugs, and almost 60% of households live in rented local authority housing, compared with a national average of 10%.

A quarter of all these families live with damp and heating problems, and every second child lives in a home in need of improvement. Almost half, or 10,431 people, in the estates surveyed had ceased education. Of that number 27% had at best completed primary education, 34% had completed lower secondary education and only 11% had any form of third level education.

Too many of the children are condemned to repeat the vicious cycle of disadvantage in their own lives. One in seven is in chronically poor health. One child in every six has special educational needs, which in most cases are not being met. The majority of the children surveyed live with parents who were early school leavers, and too many of them have no incentive to stay on in school.

Figures like these would be shocking if they were confined to one small disadvantaged area of this city. We all know other areas of Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick, Waterford and many of our smaller towns, where similar studies would produce directly comparable results. What makes these figures truly shameful is what they say to us. They say clearly that, at a time when the economy has grown faster than ever before and at a time when we are wealthier than we have ever been, we have failed many of our children and are doing that by choice.

That brings me to the second issue raised by the report. It is a graphic, crystal clear and devastating picture of inequality in modern Ireland. There is a cruel irony in putting the words "children" and "inequality" into one sentence in any debate in this House. Visitors watching this debate could well have passed through the main lobby of this building where they would have seen a framed copy of the original proclamation of independence. Since the day that document was written and long before it was hung in the hall of this building, there has been an historical, almost romantic resonance to the notion of children and equality in a republic such as ours. I do not need to repeat the phrase from the proclamation since everyone knows it.

It rings hollow in a time when so many of our children live in conditions that are, if anything, more unequal than at any time in our history. This is an affluent country, and an affluent capital city. People come to Dublin from other parts of Europe to shop for high fashion. We have gourmet restaurants throughout the city. Road building and public transport struggles to catch up with the number of new cars we buy each year. In the midst of that, children and communities struggle. In the heart of this affluence, we are unable to deal with anti-social behaviour, to give children a warm and dry place to sleep, to ensure every child goes to school with a decent breakfast and to prevent teenagers from dropping out of school and spending their lives on street corners. It is not true to say we are unable to do any of these. The real truth is that the Government has made a deliberate choice not to do them. It has chosen to ignore the problem of disadvantage.

That brings me to the third and central point of the report. Without ever saying so and without offering any overt criticism, the report makes it abundantly clear that the core of the Government's response to disadvantage has been deceit. I have spoken many times in the House about the RAPID programme and I have done my best to explain to members of the media what it means. The programme was designed to engender hope and optimism in disadvantaged communities. It was launched with maximum publicity. Communities were encouraged to pour hours of effort into devising plans on how to best use the millions that would come with RAPID. We were talking about significant moneys being fast-tracked to these areas — €1.9 billion to be pre-cise. The revitalising areas by planning, investment and development, RAPID, programme, the acronym for which was carefully chosen, was to communicate speed in tackling these problems before the last election. As soon as the election was over, we were casually informed that whereas there might be a RAPID programme, there would be no money. RAPID has been reduced to the status of a logo, being hawked around Departments and applied to any piece of Government spending that can possibly be made to carry it. The eminent Minister does that so eloquently in both languages that it fools some people but not many.

There is an annual ritual that takes place here around Christmas when we debate the social welfare Bill. Successive Government backbenchers laud the Government on its many achievements in increasing social welfare. Ministers are congratulated on their generosity, as though the money came out of their own hip pockets. Percentages are thrown around which make no mention of how much the economy has grown in recent years. Wherever possible, issue is taken with the definition of poverty used in various studies so that we are expected to believe there is no such thing as poverty any more. It is a deliberate farce intended to drown out the voice of the poor in a barrage of twisted facts and statistical definitions.

Those tactics will not work tonight, however hard the Government may try. This is a report that, to a large degree, mirrors in its methodology the seminal study of poverty in York carried out by Seebom Rowntree. Writing in the introduction to that work, Rowntree pointed out that rather than use what he called the extensive method of pulling together statistics on poverty for the United Kingdom as a whole, he would study poverty using the intensive method — a detailed investigation into the social and economic conditions in his town of York.

The power of the childhood development initiative report is that it is concrete, specific and down to earth. One cannot argue with the picture of disadvantage and poverty which the report paints. It should shock any decent society to its core, but we were not shocked. I doubt that there is a Deputy in the House who does not have some acquaintance with the realities of west Tallaght or of similar communities in their constituencies. We all know these problems exist but as a society we have failed to respond. They do not constitute the sum total of disadvantage in society. Poverty and disadvantage exist in every part of our country, but communities such as west Tallaght, where disadvantage is so concentrated, pose particular problems and challenges and place the failings of our society, and of this Government in sharp perspective.

There was a time when Fianna Fáil would have found such a report a source of concern, having historically built its electoral success on a social agenda as well as on republican rhetoric. That Fianna Fáil is long dead, and the report on west Tallaght might as well be its obituary. As has been abundantly clear for some time, Fianna Fáil has calculated that it can succeed electorally without the voters of communities, such as west Tallaght. Provided it can fuel its political machine with enough donations from wealthy interests, it does not need to do the hard graft that is required to deliver for these communities.

We know too that the people of west Tallaght can expect nothing from the Progressive Democrats when the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform believes that for our society to be successful, a large dollop of inequality is essential. On the issue of equality of opportunity the Tánaiste said:

But people who can help themselves should have the opportunity for improvement and advancement, and they should be rewarded on the basis of what they have achieved. This principle is an integral part of what I would call a fair society.

Perhaps the Tánaiste would care to tell the rest of us, on whom she poured such contempt in that article, how equality of opportunity works in any community like the one surveyed. How does a child experience equality of opportunity, when he or she does not have a warm, dry place in which to do his or her homework? How does a child experience equality of opportunity, when he or she goes to school hungry? How does a child experience equality of opportunity when the conditions in which he or she lives makes him or her too ill to attend school regularly?

The mythology peddled by the Tánaiste is allied to two other myths which may not be publicly stated but which will bubble beneath the surface of this debate. The first of those is that poverty is not the fault of society, but rather that of those who are poor. As Rowntree put it: "How much of poverty was due to insufficiency of income and how much to improvidence?" If anyone wants an answer to that question, he or she could do worse than to consult the studies undertaken by the Vincentian Partnership for Justice into what constitutes an acceptable budget for people on low incomes.

These reports have the merit of including the voices of people who are on low incomes. I will quote some of them so that their voices can for once be heard in this House. Speaking of how she manages on a social welfare income, one lone parent with two children stated:

I hate myself for being a bad mother. No matter how hard I try, I cannot give the kids things they see other kids with. It is hard not to let the kids go to the fridge when they want something.

The mother of a family with two parents and two incomes made the comment:

Child care? You must be joking. I could not afford it. I just hope that the day will come when I can work for a few hours.

Are these the voices of improvidence or people who lack an economic incentive and should simply get on their bikes? There is not much point in telling these people to get on their bikes because there are no police around to stop them being stolen.

The second myth is that there is nothing we can do because the problems are too deep, too endemic and too systemic. That too is nonsense. There are no quick fix solutions but there are measures we can take. As far as the Labour Party is concerned, no Government can be allowed to ignore the challenge posed by some of the findings of the CDI report. The mission statement of the childhood development initiative is to deliver a solutions-based ten-year strategy to remove barriers to the well being and educational achievement of the children in the area. However, if measurable improvement in the healthy development and educational achievement of children is to be recorded, it needs Government support.

We need an integrated approach to tackling educational disadvantage. We need integration between child care and education and we need to expand early intervention programmes. We need to build on the success of programmes such as Early Start and Breaking the Cycle, piloted by the last Labour Party Minister for Education, Ms Niamh Bhreathnach. Whereas at last we have some education welfare officers and there are some home school liaison officers or teachers and some minimal provision of funding for family support workers, there is no integration between the different roles.

We need to tackle the phenomenon of anti-social activity. There seems little appreciation of the corrosive effect on communities besieged by anti-social behaviour. There seems to be little concern that where a policing vacuum is allowed develop it facilitates the machinations of those who take it on themselves to provide policing without accountability. Since 1997, the political and administrative authorities have contrived to stall the decision to accord full divisional status to Tallaght gardaí with manpower, vehicles and resources that such implementation would bring.

The meanest cut and the most foul deception visited on disadvantaged communities was the effective killing off of the RAPID programme — a programme deliberately created to lead communities to believe that if they came up with the plans, the government would fund them.

There is absolutely no excuse in this modern wealthy country for local authority houses to lack decent central heating and insulation, something which my colleague, Deputy Stagg, succeeded in ensuring would be a feature of all new local authority houses. In doing so, he has at least provided the potential for tens of thousands of children to ensure better health and better educational opportunities. Those simple things should not be seen as luxuries in modern Ireland.

These recommendations will not be implemented in a vacuum. There already exists in Tallaght a strong community with the determination to carry out the hard slog that is required to make progress.

That a report such as this should come from a local voluntary organisation speaks volumes about the strength in depth and the honesty of the community I have the privilege to represent. I call on Members on all sides of this House to respect that honesty by supporting this motion.

Ms Burton

When I heard that Fr. Seán Healy was visiting the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party in Inchydoney, one part of me was glad that someone would perhaps tell the party how it was, while another felt it was an extremely cynical exercise.

Last week, I had an opportunity to attend the launch of the study of children in Tallaght and thought it a pity that more Cabinet Ministers could not have been present to hear its outcome. This is a community which has struggled valiantly and overcome many challenges such as bad planning and the provision of facilities ten or 20 years after the many thousands of houses were built. However, they have come out of the process standing, smiling and offering messages of hope for the future. Even they must recognise that hope for the future can only come if some provision of resources is allocated on a fair basis.

Children who were interviewed with their families for the survey talked about the good things in their lives, including the care and love they got from their families, but they also talked about the things that made their lives sick. Some 90% of them said they are afraid because of the prevalence of bullying, harassment and anti-social behaviour. This is a fact that should cause even this Government to stop in its tracks. It means that 90% of the children surveyed, who want to get on in school and whose families are ambitious for their future, are afraid to go outside their own door to play or go to the shops. Their parents are worried when they are away from their home place because the thugs, gangs and bullies are in charge on the streets.

They are in charge because communities such as Tallaght, along with the 26 other areas of urban disadvantage in towns and cities throughout the country, do not have the policing they should. We have a Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform who is an expert on everything except the job he is supposed to do, which is to make children feel safe in their own communities.

I had an opportunity to sit with some of the groups after the launch of this detailed and elaborate survey during which people talked about their experience of the work as it was carried out. In the privacy of the group discussions, local people stressed that, as one woman put it, "the scum-bags are in control". That anyone need refer to another human being in those terms is quite depressing. However, people feel that their children's entire capacity to enjoy life and participate as future adult citizens of this Republic is prevented by the fact that we do not have community policing. One of the means by which the Government won the last election was to promise the people the recruitment of 2,000 extra gardaí, but they are not present on our streets. The Minister will now introduce emergency measures to train gardaí, but he and people at the top of the Garda Síochána do not believe in community-based policing. Police forces around the world, whether in New York, Boston or Baltimore, once the crime capital of the United States, or in various cities in the United Kingdom, have said that the remedy to tackling the enormous fear of petty harassment, mindless violence and anti-social behaviour perpetrated by a small number of people who make life hell for everybody else is to deploy police in the community. Despite the growth in the populations of our cities, in the seven years the parties in Government have been in power, the number of community police has fallen. That is an indictment on the Government. The children in this community, through this study, are saying that they want the right to be able to go to and from their schools and to the shops in peace, and they deserve that support.

Another shameful and disgraceful finding that emerges from this study is that while statistics on money and wealth have increased, with the Department of Finance having acknowledged that 41 semi-millionaires — those with incomes in excess of €500,000 — did not pay any income tax, the numbers completing primary school and secondary school at junior certificate level and leaving certificate level are falling. This is particularly true among boys.

The Early Start intervention programmes which were created as projects ten years ago when the Labour Party was in Government are still pilot projects. This is one of the problems that bedevils Tallaght and other similar communities. A great deal of the time of people involved in these projects is spent making reapplication after reapplication for funding. The Minister has taken no decisions to make permanent the projects that have worked well in disadvantaged communities. He has done a good deal for certain rural areas, on which I compliment him, but he has done nothing for the 26 areas of serious urban deprivation in this country.

A study similar to this one is to be published shortly about part of my constituency in Quarryvale. I do not have to be able to read tea leaves to forecast what the study will indicate. Despite all the money during the years of the Celtic tiger, the position of poor families and of children of families on low incomes is unfortunately getting worse rather than better.

Ms O’Sullivan

I compliment the authors of this report and the people of west Tallaght for giving us this level of information. The most disappointing aspect of what happens in these communities, of which there are many in my constituency with which I am familiar, is that people are given hope and an indication that they will be given power, but then that is taken away from them. The RAPID programme debacle is a good example of that. Under that programme, people were brought together in their communities and asked to draw up plans and to prioritise. They got together with their neighbours and drew up plans, in respect of which they believed they would be get the necessary funding to implement them, but that did not happen. That was a most devastating experience for them.

I attended a meeting last week of representatives of the five designated disadvantaged areas in Limerick, which probably has some of the most disadvantaged areas in the country. The experiences of those representatives is similar to what has emerged from this report on west Tallaght. One of the features of these communities is the efforts of local people to try to make a difference in their communities. That is why they need support, which obviously is not available. Whatever about people being cocooned in upper middle class areas of our cities and countryside, public representatives cannot pretend they do not know what is happening.

At the meeting I attended last week, representatives of the five communities spoke about the positive work they do in their communities. They said that if the jobs initiative programmes do not continue they will not be able to do this work and that we will be leaving those communities vulnerable to the law breakers in Limerick, the names of whom we hear bandied about in the media. I am glad the Minister is present. I urge him to develop an urban jobs programme similar to the rural jobs programme he developed. That is what is needed to replace the short-term nature of jobs initiative and community employment schemes. I feel strongly about that because in my community jobs initiative workers are engaged in running crèches, providing meals for the elderly, operating security cameras in certain estates and maintaining the environment. Their involvement in the community is an example of the type of work that is also being done in west Tallaght.

I want to refer specifically to the educational aspects of this report, particularly to the fact that there are only 300 pre-school places for 3,000 children in the area covered by this study. It is shameful that the Government has not paid any attention to the area of pre-school education, the most important area in terms of addressing educational disadvantage. An OECD report published last week judged Ireland to be extremely negative in the provision of pre-school education. Only 4% of three year olds have received publicly funded pre-school education in Ireland compared to over 90% in many other European countries. My colleagues referred to the Early Start and Breaking the Cycle programmes in respect of which there has been no development.

When Deputy Noel Dempsey was Minister for Education and Science he talked about educational disadvantage almost non-stop for two years or more, but nothing has been done to address it. A report on this matter is ready to be published, but when we questioned the new Minister on it earlier we could not get an indication of the timescale as to when the educational disadvantage programme will be implemented. There are not enough education welfare officers to address the issue of children dropping out of school. These issues can be easily addressed if the will exists to do so. Professor Áine Hyland, the chair of the Department of Education and Science's committee on educational disadvantage, last week criticised the fact that the recommendations it made were not implemented. We still do not know when anything will be done to address educational disadvantage.

Therefore, this motion is tremendously important. There is a need for the subject of this motion to be addressed as a matter of urgency. I hope that by raising this matter the Labour Party will have moved the Government to take some action not only in regard to west Tallaght but in regard to all the other communities, the members of which have similar experiences to those of the people of west Tallaght.

Dr. Upton

As a country, we have listened to ourselves congratulating ourselves on our great economic prosperity, particularly in the past ten years, with some justice. This happens to be true for some of the community but, as always, the weakest have been sidelined and the levels of inequality and injustice have been particularly highlighted by the great economic development that has been very good for some but, unfortunately, has ignored many who need it most.

I welcome the Tallaght West Childhood Development Initiative because it particularly highlights the inequality that exists. As Deputy Rabbitte said, this debate is about inequality. It relates to a report that has been well researched and presented, which I welcome, but inequality does not exist only in Tallaght, unfortunately. I represent a constituency where there are many pockets of serious disadvantage. The contents of this report could just as well apply to many of those areas as it does to Tallaght.

Recently, I attended a meeting organised by Combat Poverty on the issue of food poverty. It is amazing that in the current climate of great economic success there are so many marginalised and so many who suffer from what is known as food poverty, defined as the inability to have an adequate and nutritious diet due to issues of affordability and access. It is even more ironic that in a country that is so proud of the quality and availability of its food supply that food poverty should affect in the order of 200,000 people.

Living in poverty and social disadvantage imposes constraints on food consumption in a number of ways, but food affordability is affected in the choice and quantity of food that can be bought. It impacts on the access to retail options available and the capacity to shop in terms of transport and physical ability. Those who are exposed to food poverty in their youth are the adults who are likely to suffer from other diseases arising from that deprivation. They eat less well by comparison with socially advantaged groups. They have difficulty in gaining access to a variety of nutritionally balanced and affordable foods. They spend relatively more of their income on food but do not necessarily purchase healthy options. This reflects the difficulty in obtaining affordable healthy foods. It is not that they do not know what is healthy, but that they are restricted physically and mentally by a lack of financial resources.

There has been no co-ordinated approach to addressing food poverty. Addressing food poverty should be based on the widespread availability of nutritional foods. The point made by Combat Poverty, Cross Care and the Society of St. Vincent de Paul is that a ministry should be dedicated to food and nutrition to have joined-up thinking involving all the relevant Departments, including the Departments of Social and Family Affairs, Education and Science, Health and Children, and Agriculture and Food.

One of the most distressing aspects of food poverty is the endless stream of stories of children turning up for school without their having had a breakfast. Some schools in my constituency have very good breakfast clubs, which have been a resounding success. Many of them are voluntarily run. To be fair, it is true to say that there are some good State-funded initiatives. However, many of these operate on an ad hoc basis, which has implications for funding, and are outside any broad strategic thinking. The Programme for Prosperity and Fairness recommended a reform scheme called the school food programme, intended to replace all the school meals provisions that are currently in place. This initiative should be activated to place the right to decent food provision for all schoolchildren on a formal basis. It is not good enough to be dependent on goodwill and voluntary effort when a recommendation has been made and agreed that every child should be entitled to a decent diet.

It is also true that the poorest areas have the worst public transport, causing further isolation and deprivation. This is true of Fettercairn and Brookfield in Tallaght but also true of areas in my constituency, such as Cherry Orchard and Ballyfermot. There is no train station in Ballyfermot, for instance. There is an increasing population and much improved housing in the area and therefore a greatly increased need for better transport. However, better transport is totally absent in many parts of the constituency.

Affordable child care provision has been highlighted for me recently in the Dublin 12 area. The availability of affordable child care for the residents seems to be on a stop-start basis. There is no continuity in the provision of the service because of the uncertainty of funding. An application is currently with the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform for the Dublin 12 child care consortium and I hope sincerely that it will be considered favourably. The need for affordable child care in Ballyfermot is acute. There is a very young population and therefore the demand for it will increase in the near future.

I have addressed food poverty particularly regarding children but it should be noted that the elderly have also been marginalised. It is absolutely appalling that in this day and age occupational therapy services are just not available to old people. The elderly state that if they are on the waiting list for another two years they will be dead. My colleagues and I have raised this issue a number of times but circumstances have not improved.

It is great to see that parts of my constituency have become a developers' paradise. Endless blocks of new apartments are being built, in Inchicore, Drimnagh, the inner city, Rialto and everywhere else one cares to name. This indicates planning without any thinking. It seems that the plans are being designed for the developers and certainly not for the community. Is it reasonable to have a 28-storey or 17-storey block of apartments with no retail outlets or community facilities? It is all very fine for the developers, but have we learned nothing from our having had in the past such concentrated housing without the necessary facilities? I urge the planners and developers to consider what they are doing to the population once again.

Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs (Éamon Ó Cuív)

I move amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after "Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following:

—welcomes the report of the Tallaght West Childhood Development Initiative;

—notes the Government's commitment to social inclusion and the record spend under the national development plan towards this end;

—acknowledges the success of the broader community in Tallaght and commends, in particular, the efforts of many individuals, community and voluntary organisations to improve the opportunities and living conditions of the communities;

—acknowledges the achievement of the Government in:

—putting in place a strong social and affordable housing programme involving the investment of €1.8 billion in 2004;

—directing public expenditure towards meeting the needs of low income households and those with special needs through a broad range of measures;

—the significant investment being made in west Tallaght through the various social housing measures including the local authority housing programme, the voluntary housing programme, the remedial works scheme, the traveller accommodation programme and the accelerated gas central heating programme;

—supporting the preparation of five year action plans for the period 2004 to 2008 to deliver across the full range of social and affordable housing programmes and supporting measures to achieve the effect in the long term by tackling real need and breaking cycles of disadvantage and dependency.

notes:

—the major investment in urban public housing renewal during the national development plan; and

—the Government's commitment to respond positively to the recommendations in the report of the Tallaght West Childhood Development Initiative and, in particular, to:

—continue to address the challenge of anti-social behaviour;

—note the ongoing Garda youth diversion projects and juvenile diversion programme which operate in communities nationwide, including Tallaght:

—note that the current and future accommodation requirements of the gardaí at Tallaght is currently under consideration by Garda management and a number of different options are being considered with a view to finalising proposals in the near future;

—welcome the ongoing commitment of very significant Government funding for the support and creation of child care places in the Tallaght area. To date more than €4.4 million has been allocated to the area for this purpose;

—acknowledge the improvement in early school provision initiatives including:

—the provision of Early Start pre-school places for children at risk of social disadvantage;

—reading support programmes;

—extra teaching resources to decrease pupil-teacher ratios, and additional support through the disadvantaged areas scheme;

—measures to reduce early school leaving, through the school completion programme.

—further improve the environment in the estates surveyed and continue with the housing estate enhancement scheme initiated this year under RAPID;

—welcome the prioritisation of €7 million investment in RAPID areas under Phase II of the equality for women measure which is earmarked for projects benefiting women in these areas and notes that a number of applications have been received from groups in the west Tallaght area and that the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform expects to be in a position to allocate funding by the end of the year;

—develop mechanisms leading to better delivery by RAPID, including:

—better local co-ordination;

—the leverage fund for small works; and

—the ring-fencing of funds under the Dormant Accounts Fund towards RAPID areas; and

—continue to develop the RAPID initiative in all its strands beyond 2006, including an ongoing commitment to the further prioritisation of RAPID areas in decision-making by Departments.

I thank the Labour Party for tabling this motion because this timely report raises very serious issues. Many of the issues raised by the Labour Party are totally valid. One must ask why areas such as west Tallaght are in their current position. I have my own well-articulated view on this, which I have repeated time and again, but I will repeat it this evening for the record.

The greatest source of social disadvantage probably derives from social segregation in housing and from the over-rapid growth of housing preceding the provision of services. I have spoken time and again in favour of balanced spatial development and against the unnecessary movement of people from one area to another. This denudes one half of the country of its population such that it has services and no people, while the other half has the people but no services. If there is a lesson to be learned it is that the east and west do not have separate problems but linked problems such that one area is suffering from decline while the other is suffering from over-accelerated growth.

I am probably considered unusual in that I have never believed that growth is good in itself. Unless it leads to a better quality of life, it just becomes meaningless. Population growth in itself, if provided for improperly, certainly does not lead to good living standards. We must first try to ensure that as we build in the future we avoid, where possible, both the provision of housing without services, which is difficult in a country that is growing very rapidly and still experiencing population shifts, and social segregation in housing.

Mr. Rabbitte

When does the Minister believe that will be achieved? The communities in question have already been built.

Éamon Ó Cuív

Obviously we must consider what we should do about those communities that have been built and which have, for the reasons I have outlined, suffered the type of deprivation and disadvantage highlighted in the report.

It was inevitable that there would be problems such as these because of the way the communities grew. Let us all be honest about the fact that they have grown through every Government's term of office. As the Deputy pointed out, communities such as those to which the report refers suffer from low employment, low standards of education, a high percentage of people living in public rented housing and much anti-social behaviour. It is fair to say that these factors are linked. One seems to feed on the other.

It is very significant that when we identified the 45 most deprived communities, we discovered that all of them were urban. When we picked out the initial 25, we noted that most of them were in major prosperous urban areas, given that one takes Dublin as a prosperous area in its totality. I am delighted that the Labour Party has highlighted this issue because I have said time and again that a there is a part of the country which I believe is represented neither by the Labour Party nor by us. It is a part of Ireland about which many people do not want to know, and even within this city it is treated as if it were 1,000 miles away.

Maybe we are spending a great deal of money and making mistakes that were made in the past, but I do not accept that money is not being spent in the areas in question. New houses are being built. Some €105 million is being spent on new housing in west Tallaght and €2.8 million is being spent on refurbishing 100 houses. Some 1,000 houses, many of them in the west Tallaght region, are getting central heating, which is highlighted in the report. Recently, my colleague, the Minister of State in my Department, announced a major initiative to provide heating in housing, with which I concur. One of the proudest things I did when Minister of State with responsibility for the Gaeltacht was to extend the essential repairs grant to central heating in these areas. The cold was a major factor in many houses I visited belonging to old people. They would show me dampness, much of which was caused not by water coming in but by condensation and cold. It was a major contributory factor to poor health. We must ensure there is not a house, particularly in the public housing sector, which does not have adequate heating.

I welcome the initiative taken by Deputy Stagg and the Labour Party. I recognise that we must install central heating in all new local authority houses. I equally recognise the steps being taken by the Government and the Minister of State in my Department to ensure the existing housing stock gets an accelerated programme of heating. It is interesting that a large number of houses in the area involved are getting central heating, which is important.

I welcome what Deputy O'Sullivan said about the rural social scheme, jobs initiative scheme and CE schemes. She was probably one of the first Deputies to recognise the subtle difference between CE schemes, social economy schemes and the rural social scheme. I have had interesting discussions with people in Moyross in the Deputy's constituency who put to me interesting proposals. They were up-front about matters. They recognise there is a cohort of people who are unlikely, no matter what their training, to get employment in the commercial economy but who continue to do significant work in the social economy. This is something we must examine and I listened to what the Deputy said. We should be up-front in saying that this is not about training, but about giving people the dignity of an income and a place they can call work.

Reference was made to divisional status for the Tallaght Garda region. That matter has not been finalised, but the number of gardaí in Tallaght has increased from 133 to 170, which is more than 27% since 1998. One of the valid points made is that the provision of community gardaí is of crucial importance. One could double the number of gardaí who operate out of barracks on patrols and so on, but there is a special value placed by people in these communities on community gardaí. I discussed the issue at the national monitoring committee of RAPID with the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform. We are collecting data on the issue which I intend to pursue. RAPID communities have come to me on numerous occasions in regard to these issues. Even though such issues were not a matter for the RAPID programme in the beginning, community policing is a priority for people living in these areas. I have taken on board that point which I intend to pursue. My objectives will be modest, but I hope they can be delivered on, because it is probably the most effective answer to anti-social behaviour.

It is a frightening statistic that 90% of children are threatened by anti-social behaviour. I do not know if people involved in anti-social behaviour come from within these areas or outside. I suspect that a large number of them come from areas of high social deprivation within these communities. This comes back to a concentration of people who for one reason or another have a high level of social problems. I hope the provision of extra gardaí, child care facilities and education will help to deal with the problem. My colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Noel Ahern, is doing considerable work on the drugs issue. I do not think this serious problem will be solved in one or two years.

I note what was said about child care facilities. I fully accept that the provision of child care places is of crucial importance in giving an early start to children. I accept also the argument which is frequently made that the earlier the intervention the greater the chance of success. Some 334 new child care places have been provided at a cost of €4.4 million, as well as the 379 existing places. I agree, however, that this is still a drop in the ocean. I have discussed these issues with the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform. The child care programme is an equality programme, not a disadvantage programme, to enable women to return to the workforce. It is important to examine the issue not just in the context of equality for women, which is important, but in the context of the advantages it provides, particularly in areas such as west Tallaght, in giving children a better start in life.

When we began our research for this motion and examined such issues as the youth diversion projects, we found that 449 people were involved in 31 community employment schemes, 33 in social economy schemes, 116 in jobs initiative schemes, 43 in jobs clubs, 82 in community-based training, 81 in special training and 72 in wider horizon. The expenditure of FÁS in Tallaght in 2004 will amount to approximately €12.6 million. Considerable funds are being spent on special educational programmes and so on. My colleague has spent €3.6 million in providing youth services. There are drugs task forces. My Department funds the social inclusion programme, with more than €1 million being provided to the Tallaght Partnership each year, as well as funding to the CDPs.

There are many schemes and a significant amount of money being spent, but it is still not sufficient to deal with the problem. The question is what more can we do. Much more needs to be done in these areas. The RAPID programme provides one of the keys to how we might solve the problem. Deputy Rabbitte was slightly disingenuous about the RAPID programme. He keeps quoting a figure of €1.9 billion. I am not saying that such a figure was not mentioned and I will deal with this presently. I have checked the speeches and they indicate that the objective of the RAPID programme from the outset was the fast-tracking towards these areas of the money in the national development plan, which comes to a total of €15 billion and is being spent. I do not doubt that somebody stated at some stage that the allocation to these areas under the RAPID programme should amount to €1.9 billion. I point out that €1 billion has spent on urban renewal, that is, the demolition of the Ballymun flats and the consequent rehousing of residents. I have no doubt that if one were to analyse the figures under the national development plan, we could wipe the slate clean today and say that everything can be completed by 2006. I contend, however, that the spending of €1.9 billion out of the €15 billion under the national development plan would not solve the problems of west Tallaght.

For this reason, I decided, upon becoming Minister, to develop the RAPID programme in line with the plans received by the Department. These plans were full of minor matters such as human resources and other issues not covered specifically in the national development plan. The Department could have stuck to its guns and insisted the programme was about the national development plan, fast-tracking and physical infrastructure. However, it was far more rational to look at the plans people sent in. If one considers the Tallaght plan, there is a myriad of every kind of action, some major, some minor, some specific and others general. The task was to pick these actions off one by one in a multi-tasked manner.

I shall tell the House the current status of the RAPID programme. There is no question about the spending of significant moneys but, as observed in this report, much of this is concerned with the spending of minor sums of money and the focus on social integration.

Mr. Rabbitte

The Minister was going to tell us the status of the RAPID programme.

Éamon Ó Cuív

I will do so.

Mr. Rabbitte

I have been searching for the programme since the previous general election but cannot find it.

Éamon Ó Cuív

What counts is that people involved can find it.

Mr. Rabbitte

If The Minister can show me anybody involved who can find the programme, he is a better man than me.

Mr. O’Dowd

The Minister needs to find such people rapidly.

Éamon Ó Cuív

I will find them. The RAPID programme operates on a number of levels. The area implementation teams have brought together the various service providers and community representatives in these areas because one of the keystones of the RAPID programme is integrated service delivery at local level.

Mr. Rabbitte

Is the Minister delivering a history lesson?

Éamon Ó Cuív

Will Deputy Rabbitte allow me to continue? The RAPID programme is delivering on this objective, even by Deputy Rabbitte's admission.

When one considers the RAPID plans as opposed to the rather simpler notion the Government has put together about the spending of the major money, there is a significant number of actions, major and minor. These have been broken down into a number of specific modules. The first one, which is continuing, is the prioritisation within Departments of actions with regard to major projects. This has been successful at a global level, but some major projects identified in RAPID areas have not proceeded and this issue continues to be dealt with. The second issue is that there were recurring themes, some of which are highlighted in this report, with regard to every RAPID area. Rather than getting the Government to deal with them centrally, it was decided to set up a leverage fund to allow them to be dealt with locally.

There is mention in the report of inadequate heating and I have stated that the Minister of State is already dealing with this. Another issue highlighted in the report is attention to the environment, particularly play spaces. As the Deputies are aware, under a rolling fund to be rolled out year after year, this year the RAPID fund focused on this issue of the enhancement of estates, including play areas. I have explained to the AITs that what was done this year will be repeated yearly well after 2006 because, as the Government amendment indicates, there is no intention to finish this methodology in that year. Work is ongoing in Jobstown, Fettercairn and Killinarden. Money has also been provided under the playground schemes in RAPID areas and we made certain that if a local authority, out of the money given centrally, chose a playground in a RAPID area, this could not be used as an excuse not to take the funding under this element of the programme.

Mr. Rabbitte

The Minister will tell us next that the bus service has been provided under the RAPID programme.

Éamon Ó Cuív

No, these are facts. The matching leverage system was put together specifically to deliver on these issues. If this funding were provided for only one year, it would be quite modest. It is to continue each year, however, which over an accumulation of time will make a considerable difference according to the people affected. One of the key decisions in this regard is that the funding cannot be spent unless the location and detail of the work is agreed by the local AIT. The AITs have the power to decide on the specification and location of playgrounds and other urban enhancements.

Another issue raised in the report was the provision of culture, sports and other extra-curricular opportunities for children. Apart from the youth facilities fund, any AIT-approved facility which received aid under the sports capital grant was given a 30% top-up from the RAPID fund. The gap between the amount of money given by the State and the cost of a project was narrowed considerably in this way, down to 20% in some cases. This initiative came about because it was felt that RAPID areas often lost out traditionally under the sports capital programme because they could not produce the matching funding. Rather than asking the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism to afford priority to RAPID areas, we established an arrangement whereby it would allocate money in the normal manner. After the Department completes its decision-making, which is RAPID-friendly and CLÁR-friendly, a cash top-up is then administered by my Department. This addresses the recommendation in the report in this area.

It is interesting that some of the recommendations in the report are quite modest and focus directly on the issue about which we have spoken. One of the projects we are examining under the RAPID programme, in conjunction with the Department of Social and Family Affairs and the Department of Education and Science, is the issue of food poverty. I accept that this is an important issue in these areas for a variety of reasons and must be tackled.

We are working systematically with Departments — it is slow work — to assist them in creating criteria for schemes. There is model practice in the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism with regard to the operation of the sports capital grant. It prioritises in the criteria it uses for assessing applications under these schemes. It gives extra points to applications from a RAPID or CLÁR area which are quite easily assessed. Therefore, we are absolutely sure that projects from RAPID areas are given priority in the scoring of projects.

I have spoken to the various Departments and have made it clear that we do not want a front screen that says a Department gives priority to RAPID projects, but that I want them to pin down exactly how they will give that priority in assessing schemes and how they will ensure the RAPID areas get priority.

The Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform recently announced the ring fencing of €7 million out of the €11 million available under the equality for women measure for RAPID areas. That is real and tangible. There was no ring fencing of RAPID funding under the dormant accounts funds when we got the plan. However, my Department ring fenced funds for RAPID under both the spend for social and economic disadvantage and for educational disadvantage. As a consequence, many applications in the RAPID area, particularly within Tallaght, were successful in obtaining dormant accounts funding. The dormant accounts board continues to spend this money. I hope that in the coming months, when it has finished the analysis of the applications in hand, it will announce considerably expanded expenditure.

The initial allocation given for this round was €30 million, but the Government doubled that amount to €60 million. Of the money allocated under economic and social inclusion, 100% of it is ring fenced for RAPID and CLÁR areas. A large percentage of the money is ring fenced for educational disadvantage in RAPID areas, because I recognise that education attainment in the CLÁR areas is, on average, high compared to the rest of the country. This may seem paradoxical but is a statistical fact on analysis.

This structured approach which is based on RAPID plans and on dissecting and working towards dealing with large and small issues means we are more likely to pick up all of the different strands and issues. This approach is different from the much simpler original RAPID scheme envisaged which just related to the national development plan. It is more complex to operate also. However, it will give better results.

Those of us who have worked with public bodies over the years recognise their strength. However, we also recognise that change is incremental and that it sometimes takes time to achieve results. I am willing to put in the time. Results are already evident. Next year there will be a further incremental step, building on what we have done this year. The schemes under the leverage fund this year will be added to next year and will run again. We are discussing many new ideas with the social partners and I am considering schemes never done before. However, I do not intend to initiate them as pilot schemes, like the Early Start programme. I avoid pilot schemes where possible because most of them lead to an inevitable and rational demand for permanence. I have no difficulty with that demand. However, it should be faced at the start because there is nothing worse than building people up and providing a pilot scheme that will not be continued one year down the road. I would rather start more slowly, but be there for the long haul and know that what I start will, more than likely, be kept going.

I compliment the Labour Party on putting down this motion. I do not agree with all of its analysis and no doubt it would not agree with all of mine. However, there is a genuine concern to try to focus the resources available on bringing about change. Money is needed, but we also need to ensure that when it is spent, it brings about change.

Third level access is quite a good measure of deprivation which is now much lower in the Tallaght area than it was. As a result of the work that has been going on, young people from Tallaght are now 50% more likely to continue in third level education than they were eight years ago. Therefore, progress can be made, although it is difficult and slow. Nobody in this House, no matter what the rhetoric, has a magic wand. However, I and my colleagues are committed to doing the slow hard work that will give results.

Mr. Stanton

I wish to share my time with Deputy O'Dowd.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Is that agreed? Agreed.

Mr. Stanton

I congratulate the Labour Party on raising this timely and important motion. While the Labour Party study was done in west Tallaght, it could easily have been done in many other parts of the country. I cannot understand why the Minister does not agree with many of the calls made in the motion.

The Labour Party calls on the Government to address the factors that leave 90% of children in fear of the effects of anti-social behaviour. I cannot see why the Government cannot agree with that. One of the fundamental responsibilities of any Government is to ensure that people life in safety and without fear. For them to do that we must provide security and gardaí on the streets. I do not know whether any gardaí have their origins in west Tallaght or whether gardaí are recruited there. Perhaps the Minister or his colleague should consider this. Policing is the first area that should be considered.

People or children who live in fear are afraid to go out or play. Security is basic. Many reports are issued at this time of year as we approach the budget and the social welfare Bill. One of those, Child Poverty in Ireland, reports a child as saying that the worst thing about being poor is being bullied and being frightened of being beaten up. We must start to address this fear and I agree with the motion in that regard.

This issue leads on to the status of the Garda station. I cannot see why an area the size of Tallaght cannot have a divisional Garda station on account of the huge area and population. The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform could probably provide that, working with the Garda Commissioner, at the stroke of a pen. The Minister tonight has said we will do this and that. However, a divisional Garda station could be provided immediately.

We talk about expanding programmes which will improve early school provision and the number of child care places. This significant issue must be managed. The Minister spoke about his deep concern about food poverty. Many children go to school hungry. One of the recent reports states a mother will not send her children to school unless she can give them breakfast. The implication is that they cannot go to school because she cannot give them a breakfast.

Today I got a response to a parliamentary question on the issue of the schools meals community programme which is run by the Department of Social and Family Affairs. I was told that in 2003, €3.25 million was provided, which is commendable. However, the total expenditure amounted to €1.76 million. The issue, therefore, is not just the provision of funding. Minister after Minister comes in here and says that millions have been provided for this or that. In this case €1.49 million was returned to the Department unspent. That is not good enough.

Éamon Ó Cuív

That is the issue.

Mr. Stanton

This is the problem and the Government is responsible for it. The need of at least €3.25 million was recognised and it was not used. Someone somewhere is responsible for this breakdown. This is just one example. I could quote many more where money is provided but is not used properly. Ministers tell the House how wonderful the Government is. They rattle off what Deputy Rabbitte calls the litany of the millions. However, there is no follow through. There appears to be no accountability as to whether the money is spent properly or whether people are helped to spend it. I would like the Minister to deal with this issue.

We must ensure that houses have central heating. That is basic. The Minister says the Government will do this and that. I lay down a challenge to the Minister. The budget and the social welfare Bill will soon be presented to the House. The Government will have an opportunity to show what it intends to do about poverty. We hear about poverty from the various groups. The Children's Rights Alliance has produced document entitled, Child Poverty in Ireland — An Overview. If people are poor, they cannot benefit from education and their health and employment prospects suffer. We must address poverty. The Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs is responsible for this and I am glad to see him in the House this evening and that he appears to have a serious attitude to this issue. However, he needs back-up from his Cabinet colleagues.

The Government is known by its actions. Last year's 16 social welfare cuts hit the weakest, the poorest and the people we are talking about in Tallaght and in other rural and urban areas. A person in crisis who must leave his or her house will not get private rent allowance for six months. I cannot understand the rationale for this measure. What is a woman to do if she has a crisis pregnancy, has a row with her family and is kicked out? People come to Deputies every day with this simple but serious problem. The Government created this problem last year with one stroke of a pen. The Minister can recite platitudes and talk about the good work being done but the Government will be known by its actions and by results.

At least 66,000 people live in consistent poverty in Ireland and 237,000 live in households with incomes below the poverty line. These figures are quoted in the pre-budget submission of the Child Poverty Coalition. More than 50% of households headed by someone who is unemployed live below the income poverty line and more than 22% live in consistent poverty. People who live in workless households make up to 70% of the consistently poor population.

Huge advances have been made in getting people into employment but the new sociological grouping of the working poor is emerging. These are people who are in employment but are unable to make ends meet. A man recently told me he pays €800 per month to rent a house. He has three small children and he simply does not have enough money to feed them at the end of the week. This problem must be addressed. I wait to see what measures will be included in the social welfare Bill and in the budget to address those issues.

Mr. N. Ahern

I thought the Deputy said affordable houses could not be sold in Youghal.

Mr. Stanton

I am not talking about Youghal. Many such cases exist. The Minister of State can make glib comments about this issue. It shows his insensitivity towards these issues.

Mr. O’Dowd

Hear, hear.

Mr. Stanton

The Minister of State's comments are very smart and clever. He lives in his ivory tower and does not realise what poverty is like. He does not know what it is like to live in poverty.

In the budget and the social welfare Bill, the Government will have an opportunity to make a difference. We will wait to see if the cuts of last year be reversed.

Mr. O’Dowd

This is an important debate and I welcome the Labour Party motion. As Deputy Stanton has said, many of the issues raised relate to communities throughout the country. Tallaght is identified as the area where this report has brought these issues into focus.

Some years ago, an article in the Journal for Health Gain dealt with urban deprivation and addressed health issues in the city of Dublin. The article identified six district electoral divisions where the greatest ill-health existed. A person living in one of these district electoral divisions was likely to die younger and was more likely to go to jail, leave school early, live in poor housing and be disadvantaged in every possible way than a person anywhere else in the country. I took that report to heart and I have been particularly concerned about that issue. I regret very much that the Journal for Health Gain has been abolished. I believe the health board put an end to it.

One must take a holistic approach to areas like Tallaght where a significant number of people live in poverty. The policies of the health board, local authority and the Department of Education and Science must be knitted and brought together. I welcome the significance of the RAPID programme and the work that is being done. Like other Deputies, I have submitted dozens of parliamentary questions to the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs on this issue. Apart from €4 million in the Minister's budget for this year, it is impossible to identify money which is specifically dedicated to RAPID. It is left to other Departments to provide funding for the RAPID programme and the money gets lost on the way.

Éamon Ó Cuív

I have dedicated funding.

Mr. O’Dowd

The Minister had dedicated funding this year for the first time. However, other Departments may be doing work on RAPID programmes but we do not know where that money is coming from. There is no transparency on the issue. When the Minister discusses this issue with his Cabinet colleagues, he should get them to identify spending on RAPID programmes in sub-headings in their departmental budgets. This would give total transparency on the issue and would end the doubt in many people's minds that the money is not in place.

Éamon Ó Cuív

That is the weakness. I keep repeating this. The funding is given under existing budget headlines in the RAPID areas.

Mr. O’Dowd

I do not doubt the Minister's intention or the commitment of the people who work on the RAPID programme. Nevertheless, one cannot point out in each Department where the money goes and where it comes from. There are nice words and speeches but no beef at the end of them.

The dormant accounts fund contains hundreds of millions of euro. The Government has allowed the dormant accounts fund disbursement board to allocate €60 million. This is very welcome. There is no political involvement in this spending. Area Development Management helps the board of the fund to decide how the money might be dispersed, the board meets and Departments apply for funding. Some of the dormant accounts fund has been used for the national drugs strategy. I welcome that. There is nothing wrong with the present system. However, the Minister is removing the power of the final allocation of those resources from ADM and from the dormant accounts board and taking it back to himself and the Cabinet. The Cabinet will decide how the money will be spent. The Minister's press release talks about transparency but it is transparency after the event. If an election is called next year, the Minister will tell us six months after the election what he did and how he did it.

Éamon Ó Cuív

That is unworthy of the Deputy.

Mr. O’Dowd

That is a fact. I do not agree with the Minister. He is using this as a political slush fund. In support of my view, I have only to quote the former Minister for Finance, Deputy McCreevy, who said that to avoid the interpretation of it being a slush fund it should be removed totally from the political process. The Minister, Deputy Ó Cuív, is putting the allocation of all that money back into the political system, which is wrong, unacceptable and was not intended. It is unnecessary and nobody wants it except the Minister and the Government.

Éamon Ó Cuív

And every AIT.

Mr. O’Dowd

People do not want it. I submitted a freedom of information request to the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs and there was not one letter of complaint from the Minister or any Government politician about how it has operated up to now. So it is a slush fund and the Minister is in charge of it. When this Bill comes in, the full truth will come out. Whether the Minister likes it or not, that is a fact.

Éamon Ó Cuív

When the Deputy was Fine Gael's spokesperson on Gaeltacht affairs, the islands, CLÁR and rural development, he was never able to make an allegation that any money dispersed from my Department was dispersed on a political basis.

Mr. O’Dowd

I never would have, until now. This is why the Minister is changing everything and I am disappointed because I thought he was different but clearly he is not. The Minister spoke about the need for sport in places such as Tallaght. He also spoke of playgrounds and assessing young people's needs. Last night, I watched television and saw that money from the national lottery's sports fund, over and above what anybody else ever received, was being allocated by two Ministers in two constituencies. There was an extra allocation of €9 million to organisations in the Ministers' own constituencies, thus disregarding their responsibility to the whole country and particularly places like Tallaght. The Minister needs to take the politics out of poverty. He is politicising money that is supposed to be for sports facilities for poor people in disadvantaged communities. That is not good enough.

Mr. N. Ahern

We will send the Deputy a list of the allocations from our Department for young people in Tallaght.

Mr. O’Dowd

I have no problem with that. I am saying, however, that the Government is acting improperly and disgracefully in this area.

Mr. N. Ahern

The Deputy should talk about the issue.

Mr. O’Dowd

The Minister's party has been in Government for 18 of the past 20 years and it is no wonder that Tallaght is in a desperate situation. It is no wonder there is so much poverty.

Mr. Rabbitte

Butter would not melt in either of the Ministers' mouths.

Mr. O’Dowd

It certainly would not. The voters need to be alerted to what is going on here. The Government's treatment of poor people is disgraceful and shameful.

Éamon Ó Cuív

The Deputy sat opposite me and has examined——

Mr. O’Dowd

That is history. We can play that tune but I would ask the Minister to sing a different tune. What about the Gaeltacht grants? Will he make available to disadvantaged RAPID areas the excellent scheme he has for the repair of housing in Gaeltacht areas? Every nine or ten years a person living in the Gaeltacht——

Éamon Ó Cuív

A great scheme, is it not?

Mr. O’Dowd

Let me finish my point, please. Under that scheme they can rightly and properly improve their housing because they need to. They get a very good grant. Will the Minister make that available to the rest of the people who are under his responsibility?

Mr. N. Ahern

He is against it now. If he was against it why did he not say so when he was spokesperson? He has the freedom to oppose it now.

Mr. O’Dowd

Would the Minister give it to places like Tallaght so people there could avail of an excellent house improvement scheme, such as the one the Minister's Department manages? What is the answer to that question? Is the Minister saying "Yes" or "No"?

Éamon Ó Cuív

It is a fair question and I would not like to leave the Deputy without an answer.

Mr. O’Dowd

I know what the answer is.

Éamon Ó Cuív

May I explain? The total annual cost of that scheme is just under €3 million.

Mr. O’Dowd

It is an excellent scheme.

Éamon Ó Cuív

The refurbishment of houses in Tallaght this year will cost €2.8 million. Add to that €250,000 which is more than €3 million, so what is being spent on house refurbishment in Tallaght this year exceeds the total expenditure nationally for the refurbishment of houses in the Gaeltacht.

Mr. O’Dowd

The Minister is economical with the facts.

Éamon Ó Cuív

No. That is a fact.

Mr. O’Dowd

The facts are that it is a grant scheme for the individual in the Gaeltacht. It is the individual who applies, not the local authority that does the work. That is the difference. I am asking the Minister to extend that scheme to the rest of the country.

Éamon Ó Cuív

If it is a local authority house it would have to be the local authority that does the work. The vast majority of people in bad houses are in local authority developments.

Mr. O’Dowd

Perhaps the Minister could extend the scheme to Tallaght. That would make a great deal of sense. Many people would welcome it. It is a very good scheme.

Mr. McDowell

The Deputy should keep going, he is digging well.

Mr. O’Dowd

When Deputy McDowell was appointed Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, I read his speech about the number of people he would put in prison.

Mr. McDowell

That is right.

Mr. O’Dowd

He was going to treble convictions for possession of drugs. One of the problems is that Tallaght has a serious drugs problem. The Minister can adopt his "Put them all in jail" attitude if he wants but he should put more into fighting crime in Tallaght and supporting the community. The Government is doing very little to look after Tallaght or places like it. The smirking faces on the Government benches do not surprise me. We expect nothing else after that lot has been in office for 18 of the past 20 years. It is time for a change and the change is coming. When we get into power we will make sure that people living in Tallaght will be properly looked after. That is for sure.

Debate adjourned.