Mr. Mark Candon:

At different times, Deputy Ó Riordáin and I chaired the after school education support project in the North Wall. The group, which consists only of local women rather than professionals, started out as a drug prevention project. It is a fascinating and practical example of the empowerment to which other speakers referred.

They provide after school crèche and after school services for children aged three to 18. Some of our teachers would have helped out with women who were going for FETAC level 4, level, 5, level 6 and level 7 courses. All our mothers, particularly anybody over the age of 30 or 35, would have left to go into sewing factories at 14 years of age. Three of those girls have gone to the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, and have completed social science degrees. I have said previously that the United States makes films about stuff like this. I feel a deep sense of frustration. That is one group. I talk about SWAN. We have the national college support group where the parents do a wonderful job. There are all these bits. My frustration concerns tying all the bits together to get continuity. I want to keep stressing the importance of that. There is a funding issue here. I do not know what will happen after Atlantic Philanthropies goes. I love my history and old wine in new bottles.

In the past there was the Bernard van Leer Foundation. There was also a small project whereby every time something was done in the education area in Ireland, it was trotted out and put near the top paragraph of the new report, called the Rutland Street project. Holland's book on the issue is fantastic from a qualitative understanding. The Educational Research Centre, ERC, produced two reports on it which are very interesting. In 1976, it was decided that because of cutbacks we could not afford to continue this work. The work that had been done was left in abeyance. I remind members, and those people who are old enough to remember the 1970s and 1980s, particularly in working class communities and in the inner city, of the invisibility, how things fell apart and how it has been presented to us through the work of Roddy Doyle in The Commitments and so on. Times got very tough then. I have a serious concern that not today or tomorrow, but ten years down the road some of what is happening now in terms of cutbacks where the soft underbelly is being taken away will be paid for in 2020. What happened from 1975 to 1985 was paid for in 1995 and right up to a few years ago.

The idea of an area base is really interesting. I cannot understand why the north inner city as a group is not involved; it is an area that should be involved. I stress that leadership issue. I need to be accountable to somebody. We have worked extremely hard on trust, respect and openness. We have ten years' work behind us with girls who are having babies at 18 and 19 years of age. They have worked with us all the way through. What we need is somebody to turn on the engine for us to make it happen. I think my colleagues understand the frustration. If we look at the group I mentioned, the after schools education support programme - Deputy Aodhán Ó Ríordáin will verify - it is fascinating what can happen.

I took over a small boys school 13 years ago. To give an idea of some of the challenges out there and looking at the cohort who attend, I discovered that from 2000 to 2010 almost 90% of the mothers of the children who attended had not completed a State examination; they never got beyond primary school. That is a hidden Ireland and those are the challenges. The bottom up work has been done and it needs to be supported by the Taoiseach or the Tánaiste's office. It is a dialogue issue. It is not about telling the committee I cannot get in there and do what has to be done, but it has to be drawn together.