Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

My colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Noel Ahern, also has responsibility for housing and I have no difficulty in making my views known to the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. There is a good working relationship between the two Departments. The Government is trying to bring an integrated approach to the whole scene which looks at communities in total. The reason our Department was set up was to take a bird's eye view of community requirements and not to look at everything in sections, with each section accountable for certain areas. We must take the broader view. I accept the full thrust of what the Deputy is saying. She can be assured that we are engaged with this work. We have used funds to provide facilities in areas of the drug task force's remit and so on. We are very focused on the need for integrated community development across various Departments and to ensure there is a joined-up approach towards this problem.

See this speech in context