Written Answers. - Disadvantaged Status.
Seán Crowe
Question:
316
Mr. Crowe
asked the
Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs
the exact official definition used by his Department of the terms disadvantage, disadvantaged area and disadvantaged community; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
[17025/03]
The Deputy will be aware that there is no single statutory definition of the terms disadvantage, disadvantaged area or disadvantaged community. The indicators of disadvantage used in relation to those programmes operated by my Department are described below.
Under the local development social inclusion programme, the areas within the boundaries of each of the 38 area partnerships are designated as disadvantaged. The selection of these areas was based on objective criteria, such as the levels of social welfare dependency, unemployment and educational disadvantage.
While many area partnerships also include areas designated under the RAPID programme, given the specifically focused nature of the RAPID Programme, different criteria were used to select these areas for priority attention. The selection of the 25 RAPID areas in strand I was made on objective criteria using the Trutz Haase index of deprivation, supported by other factors such as unemployment, income levels, family and social structure, educational disadvantage and high levels of rented local authority housing. The identification of towns to be included in RAPID strand II was also done on the basis of objective criteria, including educational attainment and social housing.
The Trutz Haase index of deprivation was also used to determine which areas should be prioritised in identifying areas for new community development projects. These are operated under the Department's community development programmes which provide financial assistance to fund community development projects in disadvantaged areas and also provide support for self-help work in specific target groups that experi ence disadvantage such as disadvantaged women and men, lone parents, Travellers and other groups.
The 14 local drugs task force areas in Dublin, Cork and Bray were selected on the basis of the level of drug misuse, particularly heroin, in those areas. The task forces, established in 1997, comprise a partnership between the statutory, voluntary and community sectors. The new regional drugs task forces will be based in all health board regions throughout the country.
The young people's facilities and services fund operates in areas where a significant drug problem exists or has the potential to develop in the 14 local drugs task force areas and the four other urban centres of Waterford, Carlow, Limerick and Galway. This fund was established by the Government in 1998 to assist in the development of preventative strategies in a targeted manner through the development of youth facilities, including sport and recreational facilities, and services in disadvantaged areas where a significant drug problem exists or has the potential to develop.
While urban locations have been identified as having the most concentrated areas of disadvantage by reference to the above criteria, a key manifestation of disadvantage in rural communities is that of dispersed and declining populations. The White Paper on Rural Development, "Ensuring the Future – A Strategy for Rural Development in Ireland", defines disadvantaged communities as "those displaying high levels of poverty and social exclusion". It is recognised that social exclusion in rural areas is frequently the result of multiple disadvantage and can be experienced in relation to education, employment and training, transport and mobility and physical isolation.
Under the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness, the Government gave a commitment for targeted investment programmes in both urban and rural disadvantaged areas. The RAPID programme referred to above is the urban strand of this commitment while CLÁR is the rural strand. The 16 areas originally selected for inclusion in the CLÁR programme, Ceantair Laga Árd-Riachtanais, launched in October 2001, were those that suffered the greatest population decline between 1926 and 1996, with the exception of the Cooley Peninsula, which was included based on the serious difficulties caused there by foot and mouth disease. The average population loss in these regions was 50%. CLÁR is a targeted investment programme in rural areas and complements both the RAPID programmes.
Following an analysis of the 2002 population census data, the CLÁR areas were reviewed and extended arising from the commitment in the agreed programme for Government. As a result, the population that benefits from the revised CLÁR programme was increased from 284,000 to 362,000.
