Ms Annmarie Sweeney:

In the north inner city of Dublin, it is a common experience that some of the programmes working with young people in those situations are now working with the fourth generation of a family. There will have been a failure previous times. Some issues involve the linking-up between various Departments and agencies. There is a connection to the drugs trade and young people getting involved in it. It is a challenge at local level. When we speak about community, we always say it includes the families and people who use drugs. Something we learned from our earlier experience on the drugs issue is that in the past we fell into dividing people and we were turning on each other. We had to learn from that and say we will not do it again. That is a challenge for all of us. Some of what is happening is shocking for everybody.

An example I can give from the north inner city is work done through the Inner City Organisations Network, ICON, which looked at what is described as young people being groomed to become involved in the drugs trade. People can look at that and see the parents or families as being at fault. The work that was done is very much about highlighting the voice of families and parents, and mothers in particular, going through the experience to hear about the kind of support they need. We cannot look at young people without looking at the situation of the families and parents.

There is also the broader point about how these issues link into broader issues of how we develop our communities and our cities. I am speaking specifically about the north inner city and some of these groups of young men in particular. The north inner city, and the south inner city is probably the same, is not being developed in the interests of the communities living there. It is being developed in the interests of the city. We are getting all kinds of commercial rental housing and business units but it is not being developed in the interests of the people who live there, and in certain areas there is a response from the young men.

There are areas now that used to be public and have been privatised. A good example, which was covered by the media, was when young fellas started to jump into the canal near the docks and people in the nice cafés were being disturbed by it. It was said that these young people had to be stopped jumping in, even though their fathers and grandfathers had done it for years. They learned how to swim by getting thrown in and having to figure out what to do. Those groups of young men are now being told they cannot do this and their response is to say they are not to be told they cannot do it. They say it is their territory and they were there long before. It pushes them. I am not justifying any of that but there is a context to all of this. This is the broader picture and where interagency action comes in. It is as broad as the overall development of communities. Why do we not just build communities that are good to live in? It is challenging because there are a lot of levels to it.