Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

What confidence can the decent people in the communities in this estate have that the Government has a solution to address these issues when the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform can glibly say that this is merely the dying sting of a wasp or when in a prominent street in the Taoiseach's constituency there is an open market for cocaine and heroin about which he must know? What confidence can they have when a society is fostered where inequalities are allowed to increase and the necessary resources are not invested in sufficient measures to provide for those who, for social and historic reasons, have been left behind and, unfortunately, among a brutalised minority there emerges the kind of nihilism that wreaks havoc on the community? Those are the issues that need to be addressed. They will not be resolved by the equivalent of Operation Freeflow as we approach Christmas. That will not resolve the issues. Fundamental, structural adjustments and emergency resources are required to fund grassroots community activists and organisations to assist them to take control of their communities. Will the Government make those resources available?

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