Chris Andrews (Dublin Bay South, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Talk about Youth, which is a fantastic youth project in Pearse Street, has no dedicated space. The Minister of State said that he visited different youth clubs. I ask that he also visit the Talk about Youth project and see for himself the great work they do, their lack of resources and their needs, and perhaps work with them to ensure they can have a dedicated space to work with the local community and young people.

The north and south inner cities are one community. They need to be treated as one community, they need to be looked at as one community, and they need to be resourced as one community. I appreciate the measures the Minister of State outlined in his response, but the reality is that there are not enough gardaí on the streets in the inner city to avert the ongoing daily assaults of residences in City Quay. We can have all these projects and programmes in theory, but in practice, the residents are being held hostage on City Quay, Creighton Street, Townsend Street, Dowling's Court, and Lombard Street. It is not acceptable. They need action and more gardaí, and they need it now. I completely accept that it is not a simple solution. I proposed a while ago that the bridge should be opened so that it would divert them. People felt that they had moved to another bridge further down. That may be the case, but then it may not be the case if the gardaí are proactive and have the resources they badly need. The Mulvey report outlined that the north inner city should have extra resources. Equally, the south inner city should have the same resources because they are one community. The docklands authority, before it became a developers' charter, worked with north and south inner city communities and saw them as one, and that is what the Government needs to do.

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