Mr. Seanie Lambe:

Regarding the two trust companies, we have written to the chairman and the executive board to propose possible solutions to what we perceive is a dilemma. We do not want to pre-empt what view might be taken with those suggestions but the proposal in the heads of the Bill is quite disturbing to us. We would like to see the continuation of the existing boards and that we could change the memorandum and articles of association to allow for them to be self-perpetuating charities with the same limitations, restrictions and oversight as exists now. The memorandum and articles are robust enough to prevent anyone making money out of the process, as there are no attendance fees or expenses covered. The only outgoings in the trusts are the administrative costs which are required by law to be audited annually. Up to now, those costs were paid by the authority. Over the past 12 months, those from Dublin City Council on the authority have been baulking at those kinds of expenses. We need to examine other ways of dealing with this. We are very happy with the way it is run now and view the Bill’s proposals for the trusts to be somewhat disastrous.

Our communities are mixed. Everyone is struggling but those lucky enough to be working are doing better than those who are not. After the substantial educational investment of the authority, we saw a rise not just in leaving certificate completion but in third level attendance from 1% to 10%. From 1999 to 2006, the rate of young people completing the leaving certificate went up from 10% to 63%, just fractionally under the national average. These were great achievements. The last thing in the world we want to do now is lose out on that and reverse those successes. As these figures are from 2006, we have asked the executive to see if these rates have fallen back over the subsequent years. We believe we have changed the aspiration in the community. For the first time in my lifetime, people in disadvantaged areas realise the way out of poverty is through education and it is important to keep young people in school for as long as possible.