Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

On the Department's plan for civil society, we are reinventing the wheel. CityWide and the drugs and alcohol task forces, who are the people on the ground, will attend. There is an agenda here; let us be honest. The Department is trying to take the communities out of the national oversight committee. That is the issue. To me, bringing forward the civil society, 16-person group is a way of getting the community sector out of the picture. I do not agree with it. There is a system that has worked for years. If it was supported and funded, it would be successful. There is an agenda here. I agree with Deputy Burke that we need to get the top officials in the Department to appear before the committee to explain why these decisions are being taken and the rationale behind them.

We want them to explain in detail how they have come up with this. None of the people I speak to, who understand these issues, agree with the strategy as proposed. I hope at the private meeting we can agree to get the Minister of State and the top departmental officials to appear before the committee. Deputy Hourigan proposed that taking CityWide out of the national oversight would be halted until the Minister of State and the officials appear before the committee. I fully support her call. We will be submitting Topical Issue matters parliamentary questions for the next few weeks to put the pressure on because what is happening here is wrong.