Vol. 544 No. 2
42 Mr. Howlin asked the Minister for Education and Science the number of requests he has received for the establishment of local education task forces in local communities; the communities involved; and his response to these requests. [28255/01]
According to my Department's records, one specific proposal has been received from the Inner City Organisations Network, ICON, to develop a strategic plan for Dublin north-east inner city. ICON is one of four networks operating within the Dublin Inner City Partnership. My officials and I met with representatives of the group to discuss this proposal and explained that the Department, as currently structured, is highly centralised and does not yet have the capacity to participate in local planning groups or education task forces.
As a first step towards addressing participation by my Department in local and regional developments, I recently appointed a number of senior personnel to support the work of the 14 local drug task forces. These task force areas are considered by the Government to be the initial high priority areas in view of the serious drug problems being experienced by these communities. One of these drug task forces serves the Dublin north inner city area.
In addition, local area-based partnerships, which are responsible for developing models to address gaps in provision at local level, including tackling educational disadvantage, are supported by my Department in the following ways: a representative of my Department's inspectorate has been assigned to each education and training sub-committee. This representative supports the planning and development of measures to tackle educational disadvantage in the partnership area; each partnership has the services of a part-time or full-time education co-ordinator funded by my Department. Any local group may seek the advice of the co-ordinator at any time.
