Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)
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Kilbarrack Foxfield St. John Parish is one of two parishes of the historic district of Kilbarrack in the centre of my constituency. Over 25 years ago the then President Erskine Childers laid the foundation stone for the Kilbarrack Foxfield community centre on Greendale Road and a number of very committed local groups amalgamated to form the Kilbarrack and District Community Association, KADCA, to successfully run the centre in the intervening quarter of a century. Over that long period, there have been major changes in Kilbarrack but there has always been an outstanding need for the provision of recreation and sport for the young people of the parish. Our great GAA club, Naomh Barróg, and the local football club, Kilbarrack United, have performed Trojan work over the years for the youth of the area but it is only in very recent years that both these fine clubs have received significant State support.

The Kilbarrack Community Programme was established in the early 1990s when a group of local community activists came together to form the Kilbarrack Community Families Against Drugs, which vigorously opposed the sale of heroin in the area by criminal elements. With the help of the Eastern Health Board, FÁS and the then Minister of State, Deputy Pat Rabbitte, a Kilbarrack after care community programme was developed from May 1996 and finally established in later 1998. In January 2001, at the request of its clients, the programme's name was changed to the current Kilbarrack Coast Community Programme, KCCP. Over the past decade, KCCP has provided rehabilitation, care and training to young citizens recovering from drug misuse and addiction. As a strong deterrence to prevent youngsters becoming involved in or addicted to drugs, KCCP established a vibrant youth programme, Youth Matters, eight years ago. This body provides sporting recreational and educational activities for the nine to 18 year old age group. From its beginning, KCCP has also had an active parents support group to provide counselling and support to the parents of drug misusers.

Over the past few years, KCCP has worked closely with the Kilbarrack Foxfield regeneration campaign in its aim to transform the parish area by planning to build a new youth and community resource centre. It is envisaged approximately one third of the area of the centre will be given over to KCCP's core programmes to eliminate drug misuse in our community. Recently, I met a widely representative local committee, elected after a well attended public meeting last October, who wished to report to Oireachtas colleagues, the HSE and myself on the campaign for the new youth and recreation centre. One of the committee members, Superintendent Michael Finn, a distinguished former garda who has given more than 12 years voluntary service to the Kilbarrack community, outlined how 1,500 households in the parish had been contacted and indicated support for the projects and how the wonderful Le Chéile community and youth building in Donnycarney might be used as a model for Kilbarrack Foxfield. Other committee members spoke of meetings with Deputy Lord Mayor of Dublin, Anne Carter, the Minister of State — I commend for his interest in this matter — and the Dublin North East drugs task force and the national drugs strategy team, where detailed presentations were made.

During the previous Dáil, the then Minister of State, Deputy Noel Ahern, and his senior civil servant, Mr. Padraig Stanley, investigated the strong case for the new centre made by KCCP and a wide variety of local sporting and social clubs. The Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs asked that a structure be developed to show the various community and recreational bodies in Kilbarrack Foxfield were prepared to work together to develop a facility under community control, open to all sections of the community. I strongly support that aim. This process is well advanced and the ball is, therefore, in the Minister of State's court. With goodwill all around and support throughout Kilbarrack Foxfield and the broader Kilbarrack area, the Minister of State and his funding agencies should begin detailed final planning and preparation for tendering on a greatly needed new youth and community building for Kilbarrack Foxfield St. John, all its citizens and, especially, the children, teenagers and young adults. The Minister of State is welcome in Kilbarrack any time.

Pat Carey (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Deputy for raising the matter, with which I am becoming more familiar. I also thank him for the initiatives he has taken together with Councillor Carter and the Lord Mayor of Dublin. This issue has proved difficult to resolve for a long time. I am extremely anxious to engage with the group over the next number of weeks to reach a conclusion because the next round of applications for funding under the young people's facilities and services fund is due. This is the vehicle through which projects such as this can be delivered. I am well aware of the needs of Kilbarrack because I was involved in youth work in the area many years ago. It is a vibrant community. This issue was divisive previously but a great deal of common ground has been found and I will undertake with my officials to engage with the Deputy over the next two weeks in order that we can come to a solution to the problem.

As the Deputy said, the Le Chéile project in Donnycarney could be used as a model and it is probably what Kilbarrack needs. Now that we are embarking on the next phase of the national drugs strategy, which is public consultation, the issues of drug misuse and polydrug use are as important to be addressed in Kilbarrack as everywhere else. We must also invest in prevention and harm reduction because prevention is better than cure. Earlier I attended the launch of an awareness programme by the Merchants Quay Project together with Deputies Rabbitte, Ó Snodaigh and a number of others, which focuses on needle exchange and harm reduction. Every community must come to grips with the challenge it faces and Kilbarrack has done its share in that regard. I will communicate with Deputy Broughan in the coming week and I undertake to sit down with my officials to find a resolution to this pressing issue.