Maureen O'Sullivan (Dublin Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Dr. Kelleher made the point that during the 1970s to the 1990s, there were really progressive civil servants who understood what community development was about. Dr. Pauline Conroy gave a critique of the five year strategy. She noted that there were 47 mentions of the word inclusion in the 52 page report. Her main point was that there has been an erosion of trust between the local authorities, the statutory agencies and the people who are working on the ground. It will be very difficult to get back to the 180 community projects which were dissolved. I attended the launch of another report yesterday by All Together in Dignity, ATD, on understanding the hidden dimensions of poverty. What we see there is the loss of those community projects because no one was focusing on the whole idea of poverty. There was also the lack of trust which has arisen over the years since the dissolution of those 180 projects. We need to return to that sense of trust. We are talking about local-based participatory democracy, where people in communities have their say and make decisions. I see statutory agencies and local government coming in and telling communities what is best for them rather than it being the other way around. I hope that the Minister's strategy leads to that but a close eye must be kept on it.

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