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Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Joe O’Brien, Minister of State at the Department of Rural and Community Development, today (Monday, 11 July 2022) held a joint visit to Ballymun.
The visit was arranged to discuss the Empowering Communities Programme and meet the Dublin City Council North West Area Joint Policing Committee.
The recently launched Empowering Communities Programme is administered by Minister O’Brien’s Department of Rural and Community Development and supported by the Department of the Taoiseach and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.
The €2 million Empowering Communities Programme (ECP) aims to empower local communities to craft their own responses to area-based poverty, social exclusion and the resulting consequences, with the support of the relevant Local Community Development Committee (LCDC).
14 small geographical areas, including Ballymun, will benefit from the initiative.
A key element will be the recruitment of a ‘Community Engagement Worker’ in each of the selected areas, to develop and facilitate relationships between community stakeholders, community groups and statutory agencies.
Speaking in Ballymun, the Taoiseach said:
“I am delighted that the Empowering Communities Programme will be implemented here in Ballymun. I am well aware of the importance of supporting communities and encouraging local people to engage and find solutions to local problems.
“While many areas continue to face significant challenges, particularly in relation to cost-of-living, I believe initiatives like this make a difference, particularly over the longer-term.
“A community development approach that empowers local communities to tackle area-based disadvantage, social exclusion and the resulting consequences is key to success.
“True community development must always be about helping communities to decide what’s best for them.”
Minister Joe O’Brien added:
"The Community Engagement Worker will be a position of leadership in the community, developing and facilitating relationships between the local community and other relevant stakeholders at both local and national level.
“They will be responsible for ensuring that the core work is informed by and driven by the community.
“This builds on a number of other programmes supported by my department and other initiatives aimed at disadvantaged areas such as the Community Safety Partnerships, Local and Regional Drugs Task Forces and the Healthy Communities Programme.”
The ECP is about capacity building and its collaborative approach is consistent with the government’s 5-year strategy to support the community and voluntary sector, ‘Sustainable, Inclusive and Empowered Communities 2019-2024'.
€2 million funding was 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 East 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 will focus on 14 small areas identified using the Pobal HP deprivation index which are experiencing significant disadvantage. The areas selected provide a broad geographic spread and the ECP programme will focus on these small areas as the target population for the intervention.
The 14 small areas selected are within the following Local Authorities areas as follows:
| Local Authority |
| Dublin City (4 areas) |
| South Dublin |
| Limerick City and County |
| Westmeath |
| Kildare |
| Longford |
| Galway County |
| Cork City |
| Mayo |
| Wexford |
| Donegal |