Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)

Like my colleague I welcome the opportunity to speak on the question I have put to the Minister for Health and Children. It is clear from the statistics for Tallaght west that it is a unique area with special needs. The area was officially designated decades ago as a County Dublin Areas of Need, CODAN, area in recognition of the difficulties there, and is now a RAPID area. It has not received the investment and support mechanisms the people in this area deserve and to which they are entitled.

Unemployment in the area is two to three times the national average. The population aged under 15 is 39%, whereas the national average is 24%. Almost one third of all families in the area are headed by a lone parent, twice the national average. A total of 54% of the adult population in Tallaght west left education at or before the age of 15.

Only 6.8% of the population is in full-time education after the age of 20, which is less than half the national average. The area has suffered unacceptable levels of anti-social behaviour, criminality and its negative spin-offs. Over 600 people from the area are in treatment for substance abuse — this is only the tip of the iceberg because studies suggest the real level of substance abuse is three times higher.

This Government and previous Governments should have pursued a strategy for the area in light of the statistics I have outlined. The childhood development initiative has done that with the strategy it launched earlier this week, A Place for Children: Tallaght West, a living document This is described as a living document and hopefully will get the response it deserves. It proposes intervention at the earliest possible stage with a view to preventing a child falling by the wayside.

The initiative has six targets, namely, to improve early childhood care and education radically; to co-ordinate the integration of services in schools and child and family centres with a view to increasing efficiency; to develop new services where needed; to liaise with current services; to reduce stresses on parents and children; and to evaluate and apply what is learned on a national level.

This is designed to have a major impact on this Government's targets for reducing child poverty, increasing child care places, reducing educational disadvantage and drop-out rates, and reducing anti-social behaviour. It also includes the aspiration to build an inclusive and more equal society where no child goes to bed cold, hungry or frightened and children in this area receive the same opportunities as the well-off children from middle Ireland.

What practical steps do the Minister of State and his Government intend to take in support of this initiative? Will he and his Department invest the extra €634 per child for three years as called for by this strategy? The strategy involves expenditure of €15 million over a ten year period. That is small change in the context of the amount of money taken into the economy this year, including the unexpected extra €1 billion.

If the Minister of State takes into account the problems I outlined at the start of this debate and the difficulties facing people in the area, he will see there is need for a proper response from Government. Not only this Government but successive Governments have failed the people in this area. We are trying to create a new place for children that will offer them new opportunities to break out of the cycle of poverty and structured inequality. This requires investment and joined-up Government.

I applaud the people who came together in this initiative which should have come from the Government but instead came from the community. I appeal to the Minister of State to support this positive initiative from the people of Tallaght west.

See this speech in context