I wish to share my time with Deputy Gay Mitchell.
Adjournment Debate. - Community Employment Schemes.
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle
Is that agreed? Agreed.
The matter I wish to raise concerns a community based project, the Liberties recycling training and development centre, based in Upper Basin Street. The centre performs a simple task. Its members collect clothes and cloth around Dublin for recycling. They supply 70 charity shops around and outside Dublin. Some 65% of the material collected is exported to places such as Pakistan, Africa and so on. From the cotton collected the centre supplies cleaning cloths to companies such as Dublin Bus and print shops.
From the end of December this centre will have no facility and will be unable to operate. It will not be able to continue its work and the recyclable material will be put into landfill. This is an environmental project which deserves to be supported. It wants the State to step in with support. This is a drugs task force project which has 52 ring-fenced community employment workers but, without a facility in which to carry out their work, the CE workers cannot be ring-fenced.
It would be a great pity, after the debate we have had on waste management, if all this material ended up in a landfill site. That is exactly what will happen if the State does not step in and provide the capital required to buy a building or loan or lease a building to the project on a peppercorn rent.
I thank Deputy Ó Snodaigh for sharing his time. I support him on this issue. A large number of those involved in this project are people with special needs whose lives have taken a turn for the better as a result of their work in this facility.
A suggestion I made is that we try, with the city council housing and community affairs manager, to see if a joint housing and recycling project could be accommodated on the same site or if a similar site nearby could be provided by the city council and the site concerned be acquired for housing. Some innovative way must be found to assist these people. It would be an appalling tragedy to this needy community if this facility were let go.
I do not want to go into the detail because much of it is personal to the participants, many of whom are women who have got their lives back together. Their children attend school locally and they can be seen off to school by their parents who then go to the recycling facility. Deputy Ó Snodaigh pointed out that many of the recycled clothes go to very poor Third World countries. The recycling centre has the important additional added value through this work of providing for those who are most in need internationally.
I appeal to the Minister to do everything in his power, together with the city council and any other agency that can be involved, to ensure that this facility does not go to the wall. The project has been a great saviour to many people and is worthy of support.
I have been asked to reply on behalf of the Minister of State at the Department of the Environment and Local Government, Deputy Noel Ahern. He apologises for being unable to be here.
The Deputy should note that the only possible source of funding available to the Minister of State's Department to fund the project in question is the local drugs task force premises initiative. This three-year initiative, covering the period 2001 to 2004, provides capital funding towards the cost of putting in place facilities for the provision of community-based services to drug misusers in local drugs task force areas. This is done either through purchasing or leasing of premises, refurbishment of existing premises or the development of new buildings or sections thereof.
Local drugs task forces were invited to submit a list of priority applications to the national drugs strategy team for funding under the initiative. These proposals were assessed by the team, which, in turn, made recommendations to Department for consideration.
The Deputy should note that, to date, no recommendation has been received by my Department from the national drugs strategy team on the funding of the Liberties recycling project. Funding of €12.7 million has been provided for the initiative over the three-year period. To date, €11.6 million has been allocated to 38 projects. These projects are at various stages of development and two, in particular, are major projects involving multiple sources of funding where significant shortfalls are likely to arise. In the circumstances, the Department has recommended to the national drugs strategy team that the remaining moneys in the initiative be kept in reserve to cover any additional costs associated with the completion of the projects already approved for funding, in particular the two major projects mentioned above.
In this context, the Deputies should also note that a review of the projects being funded under the programme has recently been initiated by the team. This is being done to establish whether there are projects already allocated funding which will not take up their full allocation or which might, for various reasons, not be in a position to proceed. If that is the case and additional moneys were to become available for reallocation, I understand that the team will seek a further list of projects, in order of priority, from the local drugs task forces with a view to making recommendations to the Department for consideration in due course.
I am aware of the work being done at this particular project, the Minister of State having visited the site earlier this year, and I understand the particular difficulty in which the promoters now find themselves. That said, however, the Minister of State must reiterate that the premises initiative is the only source of funding currently available to the Department through which the project in question could possibly be funded. It is a matter for the national drugs strategy team to consider the suitability of the project for funding under the initiative and until such time as the Minister of State receives a recommendation from the team, it is not possible for me to make any decision in this regard.
I hope the Deputies can use their influence in respect of the strategy team to see if that can be arranged as soon as possible.
The Dáil adjourned at 4.55 p.m. until 2.30 p.m. on Tuesday, 18 November 2003.