James Reilly (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I want to raise an issue which has been brought to my attention by a number of councillors, including Councillor Tom O'Leary in Fingal. The issue is that of the deprivation index, the manner in which it is put together and the assessments which flow from it in terms of the needs of communities. This is very important because it impacts on funding for a range of areas, including Foróige, drugs task forces and the social inclusion and community activation programme, SICAP, which is another social inclusion initiative.

The problem is that one of the main criteria used to assess this index is housing, social housing and the number of people who are in social housing rented to them by the local authority. As we know, as a result of the recent homelessness problems, the economic crash and the lack of new houses being built, local authorities in many areas are being forced to rent houses and become involved in other schemes such as the rental accommodation scheme, RAS, and the housing assistance payment, HAP, scheme. There are also long-term and short-term lettings. None of these are included in calculating the index which, of course, skews the figures considerably. If one takes a town like Balbriggan, which has approximately 25,000 people including 7,000 children, the services available to that community may be negatively impacted by the manner in which the deprivation index is currently put together.

I will be calling on the relevant Minister, although I have not yet been able to figure out which Minister that might be. I will inform the Leader which Department is responsible for this matter afterwards. I know that Pobal is involved but Pobal works with several different Departments. I will be calling on the Minister to correct this issue because it is disadvantaging communities around our country. As I have said, the example which springs to my mind straight away is the town of Balbriggan. Not only does Fingal have the youngest population in the State, but Balbriggan has the youngest population of any town in the State.

We need to give our children the best chance in life. We want to ensure a fair distribution of resources to disadvantaged communities so that we can give all our citizens the best opportunities. I call on the Leader to invite the relevant Minister to the House to address this matter. Perhaps as a result of raising the issue here today it will come to the attention of Pobal, which may pre-empt the relevant Minister and have the matter resolved by the autumn.