Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Dedicated youth centres work.

Anybody who has visited The Base in Ballyfermot will have seen the work carried out there and the example set. As Deputy Donnelly said, we cannot reach everybody, but we can try. We can try to ensure there is investment in those services, whether in Ballyfermot Youth Service or the likes of the Targeted Response with Youth, TRY, project that was operating in Donore Avenue. These are services reaching out to the hardest-to-reach young men and women running amok in communities. The idea is that the services focus on how to divert these young people away from criminal activity and from drugs and alcohol and the abuse of their abuse. It is not possible for the services to do this if they are looking over their shoulders all the time to see where the next cut is going to happen, which will mean the marginalised communities they are trying to help will be facing into another round of cuts where services will be cut and the best youth workers will be looking elsewhere for work because they will not be able to pay their own mortgages if their jobs are cut.

Let us look to the example of St. Ultan's school, what work it is doing and how it is reaching out to the community as a whole in a disadvantaged area. It is an example of how this activity can work if the investment is there and if there is continual investment. Only last week, I was at the opening of a playground at Labre Park. This is another example of my point. Labre Park has existed for more than 50 years, but the playground has only been built now. One of the most disadvantaged and marginalised communities in this city lives in Labre Park, yet the children there did not have a playground.

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