John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Taoiseach. In the Taoiseach's opening comments, he made reference to the fact that are nearing full employment and that rates of poverty and deprivation are falling. That is true but the statistics belie the fact that a significant number of people still are living in very difficult and challenging conditions. There are families who have not worked in generations so there is intergenerational unemployment. There are communities that are still very disadvantaged and deprived. There is a range of programs across Departments to assist them. We used to have the RAPID programme. Unfortunately, it has now become the community enhancement scheme and its remit is much broader than that of targeting disadvantaged areas. As for the social inclusion programme, the level of funding is static and is projected to be static for the coming years.. Funding for drugs task forces has not increased. The point I am trying to make is that the targeted interventions required by the communities need to be assessed across Departments. I am not saying for one moment that every subhead has to be increased but I ask the Taoiseach to consider a Cabinet sub-committee to examine the area of disadvantage. Three, four or five Departments must be involved if it is to be addressed significantly. We have in the past been in circumstances in which the country was doing well but we left people behind us. I would not like to see this happening now. We can do better than we are doing. We should do better but a Cabinet sub-committee is probably needed to work in a cohesive and joined-up way.