Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent)
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I thank the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Katherine Zappone, for coming into the House to discuss this question.

I have received an email from Ms Aoife Hannan, the project manager with the Kilmainham Inchicore Network. It was sent on behalf of the child care professional group in Inchicore. The Minister has received a professional report that has been drawn up since February 2016. She knows what is contained in the report which was pulled together by representatives of primary schools, secondary school principals, child care and preschool services, the Garda, youth workers and community, social and psychological services in the area. Those who started to work on the report in February 2016 met officials from the Department of Children and Youth Affairs in March this year. They emailed the first version of the report to the Department on 14 July, but they did not receive a reply. They subsequently emailed it again on 19 October. I ask the Minister to confirm that she has received the report and that she will reply to it. I am aware that those involved in producing the report were emailed by a member of staff in the Department this morning. They were told that the departmental response was ready and would issue shortly. That response is welcome and the individuals in question are delighted with it.

The Minister will agree that the report which is a review of evidence-based local and national statistical data paints a picture of the underlying demographic conditions in lower Inchicore and highlights the level of disadvantage in the area. It goes through the levels of child poverty, male and female unemployment, deprivation, lone parents and homeless children, Pobal reports, population increases, etc., all of which it breaks down into categories.

It depicts the disadvantaged situation in that area and the dire need for solutions to be put in place in the community. Section 2 discusses how a comparative study with other areas would help explain conditions and needs in the area and section 3 outlines the loss of services which has occurred in the area. Case studies to humanise the situation as experienced on the ground were outlined at the meeting with the Minister's officials on 29 March. Section 4 gives a review and solutions are offered in section 5. The last section is a brief summary and outlines the conclusions of the report. I would like to hear the Minister's reply to this. The group has asked me to extend an invitation to her to come into the community in response to the report so that she can actually see the area, get a feel for it and meet the different organisations involved in pulling this together.

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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I thank Deputy Collins for raising this issue. I can confirm that officials from my Department met with representatives from the Inchicore Childcare Professional Group earlier this year, as the Deputy mentioned. As the Deputy has outlined, at this meeting the group submitted a report on a wide range of issues which it felt were having a negative impact on the lives of children and young people in the Inchicore area. These ranged from the funding of youth initiatives to the sustainability of child care services. Many of the issues raised are those that I have been seeking to address during my time as Minister for Children and Youth Affairs.

I commend the group on a comprehensive report and assure it that my Department has been working hard to address the issues raised within it. One issue that struck a chord during the group's meeting with officials was the fact that parents from lower income families could often not afford to pay the difference between the subvention available to cover the cost of child care and the cost of delivering child care or the fee charged. This had led to a situation in which the sustainability of community-based services in the area was threatened. It also led to an unfortunate situation in which the service had to chase parents for top-up payments which they could sometimes ill afford. That is deeply distressing. To address this problem I have recently increased the amount of subvention available to many of these families by as much as 50%. Subsidies per week per child have now increased from as much as €95 per week to €145 per week. Some 34,000 children across the country are now registered for subsidies such as this.

To improve the sustainability of services, I have also recently announced an increase of 7% in the capitation my Department pays for the early childhood care and education, ECCE, scheme. This will come into effect next September. This will deliver extra income to child care services for the 114,000 children expected to participate in ECCE from that time. I have also introduced a universal, non-means tested child care subsidy scheme for children under three. This reduces the cost of child care for parents by over €1,000 per year per child. In addition, in recognition of the administrative role which child care services play in delivering Department of Children and Youth Affairs schemes, especially services such as those in Inchicore which deliver targeted schemes, I have made available €18 million in funding in 2017 as payment to the services for supporting these programmes. This funding has also been secured for 2018 onwards.

I recently announced an additional €2.12 million of funding for family resource centres. Up to €10,000 is being made available to each of the existing 109 family resource centres. In total, €16.37 million will be invested next year by Tusla in its family resource centre programme, an increase of 21% on 2017. Extra funding of €1.5 million to support the provision of youth services throughout the country has also just been announced. This brings overall investment in both national and local youth work services to €58.9 million.

While these changes may not fully restore funding to its peak they represent a hard fought step in the right direction. It is not always possible to restore specific projects that have ended but by levering additional funding into the areas of child care, family resource centres and youth work we are helping to strengthen the key services which the Deputy's group has identified as struggling from cuts made during times of austerity. I have fought hard to increase investment in these areas. Investment in child care, for example, is up 87% in three years. I know that much more needs to be done to get to where we want to be, and I look forward to working with the Deputy and hearing her suggestions in that regard.

Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent)
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I thank the Minister. The case the group is making is that there is a particular need within the lower Inchicore area, where there is quite considerable deprivation. It is suggesting that the Minister target specific initiatives which would assist the community in the area. The level of child poverty in Our Lady of Lourdes national school is 22%. The rate in Dublin generally is 6.6%. We are talking about a community where the child poverty rate is 16 percentage points above the Dublin average. The unemployment rate is 38% in that area while the national average is 7.1%, so we are talking about a community in which the unemployment rate is 31 percentage points higher than the national average. The level of male unemployment is 30.4% in the Myra Close and Turvey Avenue area, 22 percentage points above the national average. The report makes points about child poverty in the area of St. Michael's Estate specifically, an area which is suffering severe deprivation. Surely there are initiatives which could be looked at. The group wants to sit down and talk to the Minister about such initiatives. It understands that money has come through. The Minister has made many points about the increases she has managed to get in other areas.

This area also has the highest density of DEIS schools. The need for DEIS schools and the need to provide more supports for children is recognised in the community. If this generational poverty continues, it will cause more hardship, more drug problems and more chaos in the community, and there is a lot of chaos in the community already. We can do an awful lot more to redirect resources to this area. The group is talking about money, but not just money. It is also looking at other areas which could support the community. It would be very good if the Minister could link in with the group at some stage.

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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I thank Deputy Collins again. She represents the concerns and interests of her people very well. It is important that she is able to do that and I hear the concerns. Over the course of the years I have been working, I have had the opportunity to go to Inchicore and to meet some of the people there. I have come into contact with some of the real challenges which the Deputy has identified but I have also come into contact with the extraordinary group of professionals there and seen the community spirit and the resilience of both the people living there and those working there. I commend them on that resilience and spirit. I mean that. It has inspired a lot of my own work in other settings.

The report which the Deputy has provided to myself and the officials, which was prepared by a range of professionals in the area who worked together to put forward their case, is really important. Ultimately, the only way an area can change, particularly in respect of the primary issues which the Deputy identified towards the end of her contribution, and the only way it can challenge, reduce, shift and change generational poverty, is for all the different groups to work together. I have some understanding of how challenging that is. The fact that they have come together in this regard is very impressive.

The Deputy described the level of disadvantage in terms of child poverty. She is probably aware that, as part of a cross-Government approach, we have tried to identify new ways to work on this very challenging social issue. We have come to the conclusion that a lot of it is about investing in services as well as increasing opportunities for the employment of parents. I have told the Deputy about many of the different ways in which I have made additional investment in services throughout the short tenure of my ministry. At the same time, I have given her national figures. The Deputy is looking at her constituency. She has asked me to come and see the area and I will do so.