Sir, - As the representative local community development organisation for the south-west inner city of Dublin, we in the South-West Inner City Network watched last Thursday's Prime Time programme on St Teresa's Gardens with some interest.
We understood that Prime Time chose to present the "starkest" cases of deprivation in St Teresa's Gardens. We understand that that the depiction of such cases may have occasioned a great deal of shock among a public subjected to a pervasive government and media consensus of "economic boom", "prosperity" and "social partnership". We understand, importantly, that the programme will inevitably have caused a great deal of upset among a number of residents in St Teresa's Gardens - a community which remains distinguished by a strong, supportive and active community spirit. SWICN is, however, a little perplexed by the outpouring of shock and amazement from those sectors of Irish public life which have had every occasion and obligation to familiarise themselves with the reality of life in of one of the most socially excluded areas in the State. In 1998, SWICN was the body charged with commissioning a report on the St Teresa's Gardens flats complex - a report commissioned as part of the Integrated Services Process (ISP) and submitted directly to a Government inter-departmental committee.
Although not as comprehensive as we would have wished, our report engaged in an extensive consultation process with the following parties: the residents of St Teresa's Gardens; the residents' committee there; a wide variety of voluntary/community groups operating in the area; and a cross-section of front-line personnel from four of the main statutory agencies. The report also presented a profile of the flats complex and of statutory and voluntary services in the area.
Based on all of this, the ISP report identified 11 key issues on which those consulted judged urgent action to be necessary: (1) housing and maintenance; (2) health services; (3) drug treatment facilities; (4) policing; (5) youth Services; (6) education; (7) recreational/respite needs of adults; (8) growing exclusion of men; (9) services for the elderly; (10) unemployment; (11) access to services. Each of these issues was the subject of a series of recommendations, whose implementation would have transformed the environment portrayed in Prime Time.
We know that the Integrated Services Process has commenced. We welcome this development. We also, however, welcome the Prime Time programme, which has served to focus sudden, if belated, public and critical attention on the degree of deprivation to be found in parts of the south-west inner city. If, however, it does not also serve to generate sufficient political will and public support to effect the urgent, immediate and radical investment so necessary in such areas, it will have become just one more stark documentary for the archives. - Yours etc.
John Gallagher, Chairperson, South West Inner City Network, Carman's Hall, Dublin 8.