Minister Joe O’Brien announces expansion of the Empowering Communities Programme

Expansion of the Programme to 2 new areas - Tallaght-Jobstown and Roscommon-Castlereagh
Funding for deployment of Community Engagement Worker(s) in these 2 areas

Minister for Community Development and Charities, Joe O’Brien TD, today (Thursday, 18th July, 2024) announces the expansion of the Empowering Communities Programme (ECP) to 2 new areas - Tallaght-Jobstown and Roscommon-Castlereagh. The ECP specifically targets area-based deprivation, identified by the Pobal HP Deprivation Index, through a community development approach.

The programme aims to empower local communities to craft their own response to area based poverty, social exclusion and the resulting consequences, with the support of the relevant Local Community Development Committee (LCDC).

As part of this programme, a Community Engagement Worker(s) will be recruited for both areas to develop and facilitate relationships between community stakeholders, community groups and statutory agencies and structures.

Speaking at the launch Minister O’Brien said:

"I am delighted to announce the latest two locations to receive support from the Empowering Communities Programme: Tallaght-Jobstown and Roscommon-Castlereagh. I strongly believe that each community knows best what its issues are and what its solutions are. The ECP is designed to do exactly as it says – empower communities to design its own community development approach to tackling the issues facing it. It supports communities in creating and implementing specialised community work responses to local concerns and particularly in areas of specific disadvantage and the resulting social exclusion

The Minister continued:

“The Community Engagement Worker will provide leadership in the community, developing and facilitating relationships between the local community and other relevant stakeholders at both local and national level. In addition they will be responsible for ensuring that the core work of the ECP is informed by and driven by the communities."

Minister O’Brien concluded:

“This programme builds on a number of other programmes supported by my department and will work closely with other government funded initiatives aimed at disadvantaged areas such as the Community Safety Partnerships, Local Drugs Task Forces and the Healthy Communities Programme. The people focused, capacity building and collaborative approach of the ECP is consistent with the government’s 5-year strategy to support the community and voluntary sector, ‘Sustainable, Inclusive and Empowered Communities 2019-2024'."

ENDS

Notes to editors:

The Empowering Communities Programme (ECP)

To date over €4 million has been secured to design and implement a new programme aimed at specifically targeting area-based deprivation through a community development approach.
This initiative is partially in response to a Programme for Government commitment to expand the Dublin North Inner City model to other areas.
The Empowering Communities Programme (ECP) aims to empower local communities to craft their own response to area based poverty, social exclusion and the resulting consequences, with the support of the relevant Local Community Development Committee (LCDC).
The ECP programme initially focussed on 14 small areas identified using the Pobal HP deprivation index which are experiencing significant disadvantage. The areas selected provided a broad geographic spread and the ECP programme will focus on these small areas as the target population for the intervention.
In 2023, additional funding of €150,000 was approved for the expansion of the programme to the Cherry Orchard area, following analysis of deprivation in the locality. The ECP is proving itself to be a suitable method for building community trust and integration, With its focus on ‘one street at a time’ engagement, knocking door to door and allowing for residents' unique issues to be heard and solutions found.
The 15 small areas selected are within the following Local Authorities areas as follows:

- Dublin City (5 areas)

- South Dublin

- Limerick City and County

- Westmeath

- Kildare

- Longford

- Galway County

- Cork City

- Mayo

- Wexford

- Donegal