Richard Boyd Barrett urges action to save Dun Laoghaire playground

Minister, this is a very local issue to Dun Laoghaire, but it's very important. The playground on Library Road, formerly Johnny Carr's Park, has been a supervised playground since the Dominican nuns supervised it. So generations of local people from Dun Laoghaire have been brought up effectively in this playground. And for the last 10 years, Crosscare have employed two part-time supervisors of that playground, Pauline and Jill. Thank you. And now the supervision is being removed. And basically I want to know whether your department would entertain discussions with stakeholders, including the council, Crosscare, Bernardos, to try and maintain the supervision of this playground. Thank you the Deputy for raising the question. My department provides funding for facilities such as playgrounds through capital grants for the provision of playgrounds infrastructure, including multi-use area areas or MUGAs, through schemes such as the Community Enhancement Programme and the CLAR Programme. I understand also that the Department for Children and Youth Affairs administers a capital grant funding scheme to provide new or refurbished existing play and recreation facilities for children and young people, and has regular engagement with the local authority Play and Recreation Network. While my department provides funding towards the capital cost of providing playground infrastructure and equipment, it does not provide funding towards the ongoing running costs of managing such facilities, including the cost of supervision. The cost of providing supervision would not meet the criteria for any funding scheme currently operated by my department. Responsibility for the provision of amenities such as the playground is under the remit of my colleague, the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, whose department supports local government in its role of promoting the well-being and quality of life of citizens and communities through the efficient, effective performance of its functions and the delivery of good value services at local level. I understand that the playground referred to by the Deputy is a facility which has been supported by Dun Laoghaire Ratdown Local Authority. It has indeed. The funding has been provided by Dun Laoghaire Ratdown and really quite disgracefully, in my opinion, the executive have made a decision to pull the funding because Crosscare have pulled out, which I also think is a really retrograde decision. And what I really want to, I mean, the cost of it is, is buttons, right? It's about 40,000 euro a year for two part-time staff who are members of the local community. But the value they give to the community is really extraordinary. And you have kids from the very youngest kids to up to the ages of 13 and 14 who are supervised there. And a lot of them would be kids with special needs. It's in an area where there's a desk school. So it's a pocket of disadvantage in Dun Laoghaire. And if it's lost, a lot of these kids would be kids that wouldn't go to other playgrounds. And, you know, if you even think about early intervention in areas of disadvantage, this is an example and a very cheap example in terms of the cost to the public of providing early intervention and monitoring of young people, vulnerable young people in many cases. And what I'm just appealing to you as Community Minister is that you might play some role in maintaining what is a vital community facility. Thank you. The only, I suppose, solution I can give them to it, within my department, we have the Community Services Programme. And the Community Services Programme supports 400 organisations nationally. And in the Community Services Programme, we provide funding for the manager. We provide funding for staff. We pay $32,000 per manager, $19,000 per staff member. Now, the only other area that I can ask you and send you to and ask them to look at to see if there's anything that can support you, assist you, is maybe the SICAP programme to see if there's anything there that can be done. That is administered by my department as well. But in relation to the scheme in my department, we provide capital funding. We don't provide for staffing or we don't provide for supervision. That's not the role that we have in our department. And we just don't have the resources for that. But at least under the Community Services Programme, you might get somebody to have a look at that and see, could you set up a Community Services Programme? Because it's working all over the country, we have 400 organisations. We have thousands of people that are getting. Now, we don't pay the full salary. We make a major contribution to it. $32,000 for the manager, $19,000 per person. So, maybe it's something that you could look at. Okay. Final comment from Deputy Boyd-Barrett. Well, I appreciate that, Minister. And I will look into that. And that's maybe some area of hope. I wish the Council Executive in Dun Laoghaire showed as much energy to maintain this or interest as you have in the last five minutes, quite frankly. So, I appreciate the thought. I would also, thanks to Deputy Cleary for passing me that note, I would actually appeal to Fianna Fáil on this one as well. Fianna Fáil are now in control of the Council. And, disappointingly, both of your prospective general election candidates, having initially said they support the supervision at the playground, have now, I think, under pressure from the Executive of the Council, who don't want to keep the supervision, have now done a U-turn on it. And I would ask you to appeal to them, because I'll tell you they're going to suffer a political price in Dun Laoghaire if they don't secure the supervision in this playground. But I do appreciate the Minister's response, and I will look into that. And I accept it's both local government. But I think there should be joined up thinking on these things, because when something is good and it's working and it's served a community and helped glue a community together for generations, why on earth would we let it go? Thank you very much. Final comment, Minister. We also have the Community Enhancement Programme, and we give approximately, per average, $120,000 to each local authority. And that's discretionary. It's done by the LCDCs and the elected representatives. And if they want to take funding out of that, to provide the measure that you need, I'll just say this. Councils and councillors have to make decisions as well. We provide the funding for capital. We provide the funding for the Community Services Programme, the Community Enhancement Programme. That's down in their hands now. They can make that decision, and I hope that they will make the correct decision. OK, thank you both. Thank you.