Over the past two decades we in Coolock, in the heart of Dublin's northside, have developed a large community campus of buildings to bring services from the centre to the people of the northside. The project began almost two decades ago in one of the old schools in the area. Since then we have built a number of enterprise centres, facilities for St. Michael's House, crèches and child care centres, including the famous An Doras Buí, and helped a wide range of other community groups, including our local radio station, North East Access Radio.
The culmination of this work was the plan which began with close negotiations with the Civil Service through the strategic management initiative to establish civic offices at Coolock for the outer northside. The offices would specifically serve the Dublin North-East and Dublin North-Central constituencies. Over four years ago negotiations began and we now have a magnificent new building, with 2,717 square metres of space, which is about to be opened – I invite the Minister of State to visit in the coming weeks. I congratulate all the players who got the project this far, including the Office of Public Works, Dublin City Council, Northside Partnership, Coolock Development Council, the Money Advice and Budgeting Service, the Citizens Information Service and the Coolock Community Law Service.
The Minister of State will be aware that a problem has arisen due to the very high rents being charged to the community groups and I declare an interest in that I am a long time director of the Northside Partnership. Approximately 40% of the centre will be taken up by the Department of Social and Family Affairs, which is moving the main employment exchange for the area to Coolock, but some other groups are facing major rents. Most accept there will be service charges and other ongoing costs but the Northside Partnership and the local employment service, for example, face a total bill of €54,000 per annum. North East Access Radio faces a bill of approximately €38,000 per annum and the Coolock Law Centre faces a bill of €44,000 per annum. These rents include service charges and perhaps some of the capital fitting out costs. Voluntary bodies will face major fundraising efforts. The money advice and budgeting service faces a similarly high rent bill, as does the Citizens Information Centre.
These bodies are often directed by volunteers – although they may have professional staff, much of the fundraising and organisation is purely voluntary. Everyone recognises the need for service charges as the building on Bunratty Road must be well maintained and remain an asset to the area. However, we do not understand why hard-pressed voluntary groups should have to stump up huge amounts in rent year after year. The Department of Social and Family Affairs is the key as it is the mother Department for MABS, Comhairle and the CIC, yet it is not paying rent. The burden seems to be falling on the voluntary bodies.
The Taoiseach asked us to respond vigorously to the White Paper on Voluntary Activity. At one stage he echoed contributions from all sides of the House in saying we should try to encourage volunteers at every turn and voluntary committees like this try to supervise our professional organisations on a voluntary basis. However, if we must spend endless amounts of time fundraising it will distract us from what we do best, attracting jobs to the north side. I urge the Minister of State to look at this again and to deal sympathetically with these hard-pressed community bodies.
