Ms Deirdre McCarthy:

I thank the committee for giving us its time and inviting us to discuss the issue. I also thank Ms Anita Gibbons for the time she has given us on the petition.

We will go through some of the headline points from the presentation we provided to the members because it is quite long, but we hope that members will take the time to read it in more detail.

I am conscious of the fact that it is not exactly a snappy title and that there are complicated themes within the documentation, so we might not hit all points as clearly as we hope to. My name is Deirdre McCarthy and I work for a community group in the inner city called Community Technical Aid, and I am accompanied by Ms Sian Muldowney who works for another community group called Inner City Organisations Network. Both groups are members of a wider Dublin inner city community co-operative established late last year following on from the Community Alliance. We have joined with 15 grassroots inner city organisations who are working together to look at wider issues like this and work in solidarity. Ms Muldowney will go through some of the details on the social inclusion and community activation programme, specifically tendering.