Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I echo the remarks of Deputy Howlin on the violence that has occurred in the north-east inner city and share his concern and horror at what has been going on in an attempt to eliminate an entire family. The people of the north-east inner city, like everyone else, just want to be able to live their lives and go to school, college and work and do not deserve to have this level of violence on their doorstep.

In terms of recent investment, €21 million is being invested in the St. Mary's Mansions project, which is a great example of inner-city regeneration. There is a permanent Garda presence through the emergency response unit, and it engages regularly with the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, who is a Deputy for the area as well as being the Minister for Finance and Public Expenditure and Reform. A new community employment scheme has been established, which is specially targeting hard to reach unemployed people in the north-east inner city. As people are aware, there is a project board under the chairmanship of Michael Stone. There are no proposals at present to replicate this in any other neighbourhoods and it would be too soon to do so. We need the board to focus on getting the work done, and when it is done we can do an assessment as to whether it was effective, to what extent it was effective and what worked and what did not work. Only then would it be appropriate to consider whether it is a good idea to extend the same approach to other areas.

I had the opportunity to visit the area in my official capacity as Taoiseach on three occasions in recent months and many times in my personal capacity being from not too far from there. I intend to pay another visit towards the end of this month. The structures include the north-east inner city programme implementation board, four subgroups, the north-east inner city programme office and community consultative events. The programme office has been established in the area and commenced work on a number of actions. As part of the process the board has established four dedicated subgroups dealing with crime and policing, maximising educational opportunities, training and employment opportunities and an integrated system of social services, and improvements to the physical infrastructure in the area.

The first in a series of planned community events took place in October to ensure wider community involvement, participation and feedback on the various aspects of the initiative. With regard to funding, approximately €5 million was invested in 2016. This included an investment of €1 million in sports facilities and projects, €700,000 on local community projects targeting children and youth, €100,000 on drug-related projects and €3 million on physical improvement works, including roads, housing areas, parks lighting and refurbishment of the Sean McDermott swimming pool.

The €22.5 million provided in 2017 was allocated to projects across four priority areas, which are those I mentioned earlier. These include CCTV, the construction skills course that I mentioned earlier and grants to local projects. This year, funding has been provided through the Minister, Deputy Ring, under the RAPID subhead, on the same basis as the previous year. This will provide an extra €2.5 million in capital and current funding being allocated to the board, including a pilot social employment scheme. It is fair to say some of this is money that might have been spent in any case had the board not been set up, but some of it is additional. I am not able to give an exact breakdown.

See this speech in context