Howlin not satisfied with progress on North Inner City task force

14 July 2016

In the Dáil under the Order of Business I told the Tánaiste that I am not satisfied with the government’s progress on establishing a taskforce to focus on regenerating the North Inner City of Dublin.  

In the wake of a spate of gang-related killings, I visited the North Inner City with Joe Costello where I met with members of the local community, community leaders, business owners, educators, service providers and Gardaí.

What I heard was that locals were weary of the sudden bursts of attention the area gets when awful situations like this arise. Their experience was, that once the TV cameras disappear, and the killings are shifted off the front pages, that the policy makers, the politicians and the media move on, and the local people are once again pretty much left to their own devices.

I fear now, that this is precisely what is happening and any sense of urgency that may have been there a few weeks ago to address the deep-rooted social and economic problems of the North Inner City, has all but evaporated.

I acknowledge that the Taoiseach has revisited the area in the last week or so, but there is no apparent progress made in establishing a task force to put together a multi-agency plan for the area.

The people of the North Inner City deserve to know when the make-up of the task force will be announced, what its terms of reference will be, who will lead the process and what involvement will there be from the local community.

I call on the government to make this clear within the coming days. 

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