Máire Devine (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I should say that I am a board member of the Donore Community Drug and Alcohol Team, so there is a bit of a bias there. It is obvious that the Dublin 8 area of the city, as with many inner city areas, has long faced deliberate neglect, with socioeconomic challenges that have left communities not feeling safe and bereft of security, housing, health, education and community centres. The Donore community centre was burnt down nearly five years ago. Notre Dame, which burned down at the same time, is now back functioning but Donore community centre remains a shell. It was the place of safety for many youths who would come in and attend the programmes that were offered.

Youth is really important. I am not sure how many other Deputies or Senators receive representations. However, the kids seem feral. They are roaming around. They have no experience of a community centre or breakfast club. They are from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. The regeneration of their complexes and areas has been paralysed and stymied. There is also the known impact of Covid-19. These kids are causing havoc around our cities and we have not got a handle on it. They are there to be picked off by drug dealers as runners and watchers and we are losing a generation of them. I am alarmed by that and we in the drug team are greatly alarmed by the antisocial behaviour and criminal behaviour young people are engaging in. We are losing that generation. That is a grim vista.

To go back to Ms Kelly on women using crack cocaine. The programme is unique. Only a few programmes in the country target women. Regarding cocaine use, we tend to think of it as just cocaine, a class 1a drug used as a recreational drug, but there are difficulties with it and it is addictive. Cocaine use has gone up by 450%, or whatever the figure might be, which is concerning. The niche drug, crack cocaine, is more damaging to women and older women in already devastated communities. I am surprised by the ages of the older women who are getting involved. Is that to do with any particular factors? Are they new to all of this or are they just surrounded by it all? Many of them live in fairly despairing circumstances, including domestic violence. Will the witnesses expand on that?

I apologise for being very local. In most inner city areas, in particular the south-west inner city, we have massive development, including massive apartment development, yet none of the infrastructure such as community centres, football pitches and sports is being provided. The Land Development Agency, LDA, and Hines indicate that at least 1,500 units will be available. If I multiply that by three or four, it means that in the region of 6,000 extra people will be plonked into the area in the next two years, with no community centre or facilities. We are working on that. We need to open our eyes and see what is going on. We need educational facilities, a hospital and the services that support a healthy, progressive and contented ease-of-life community. However, we do not seem to have that. Hopefully, we will be back in the old base soon.

How can we influence the funding, flexibility and independence that were there but have been taken away and provide the checks and balances that are absolutely required for public money? How can we influence it? Do we invite the HSE in and say this is not working and that it needs to listen and act?