Ms Bríd O'Brien:

To pick up on the Chairman's point, there are structural issues of inequality facing us as a country. At the height of the Celtic tiger we failed to address those and when the crisis hit, many of those communities found themselves even further behind. We must address those issues. If we are not serious about ensuring that we are working from a starting point where there is a strong commitment to and application of equality, human rights and social inclusion, we will fail yet again to address those issues. We must be serious this time around in putting in place the policies, the practices and the resources to ensure everybody feels he or she has a serious stake in this country, this country is for them, and the services and supports that are offered to him or her are meaningful and will help to improve his or her life.

In areas where there are few opportunities, in many cases it is programmes, such as community employment or Tús, that help to keep a service open. Those communities lost out on a lot of resources. A lot of resources were taken out of the Community Development Programme and the Local Development Programme. Social Inclusion and Community Activation Programme, SICAP, has quite a different focus. Its focus is very much in terms of the resources that were in some communities that helped people be able to develop projects in their local area. A lot of those have been reduced. We need to look at how to provide resources to help communities make responses to the issues, including employment, facing them, but also to look at other issues that they can address. There was a strong focus on addressing issues facing rural communities but there is an equal need to acknowledge and seek to address the issues facing urban disadvantaged communities.