Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The Senator has my commitment that I will engage with the Minister on this matter.The Senator outlined the situation around community centres in general very well in his opening statement in that every community centre in the country probably has a different story behind how it came about, often with communities actually building them, and more recently communities themselves directly contributing, along with local authorities and sometimes central government. They are often anchored in a school, GAA club or local church. We will do a scoping exercise to see what is falling between the cracks because there are situations where pieces of infrastructure or concentrations of settlement may not have enough momentum to lever a proper community centre in its own right. It should also be noted that when new developments are planned and are being built, they should and generally do, but not always, include provision for a community centre. I accept the Senator's point that in many areas there are gaps.