An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business Seanad Éireann — 2026-04-28 ============================================================ Evanne Ní Chuilinn (FG), Nominated by the Taoiseach I want to speak about a wonderful group of students I met in my community yesterday. I visited St. Audoen's National School in Dublin 8 and sat down with the children from the older classes in the school. We had a great chat and spoke about life, politics, sport, writing and journalism. We chatted about the importance of democracy and the changes they brought about in their school as a result of their student council. I was delighted to spend my morning with the best and the brightest of us and I am grateful to Principal Geoff and his teachers for inviting me in for a chat. Unfortunately, we are failing those children and their families and teachers because people who live in the south-west inner city of Dublin are dealing with some of the most alarming socio-economic realities. A report launched last week by Sporting Liberties told us the crime rates in the area are double those of the national average, as are drug-related deaths. The research for the report, produced independently by Barra Roantree of Trinity College, told us that four in ten of the children I met will go on to secondary school in the area. Some will leave the area to go to secondary school, but unfortunately many leave school altogether. The progression rate to third level is 36%. Education opportunities are curtailed; health provision, both physical and mental, are negatively affected; and we are back to a postcode lottery. Being born in Dublin 6 does not make you any more worthy of a vibrant community, a local education, a football pitch or a swimming pool. Yet, the children of the south-west inner city have nowhere to run around and emulate their heroes. The girls' football team at St. Audeon's has won multiple trophies and they look up to our women's national football team but they have no chance of honing their skills on the postage stamp of a yard I saw at the school yesterday. In fact, half of the primary school students in the area never participate in organised sport outside of the school. That is because there are no facilities in their area. This in turn leads to poor health outcomes and poor social outcomes. Luckily for us here in the corridors in the power, we have an independent report with a set of recommendations. I put on record my support for those recommendations. We need a south-west inner city task force, not dissimilar to the north-east inner city task force. We need ring-fenced funding of €8 million per year and a programme implementation board with an independent chairperson. Former Taoiseach Enda Kenny set in motion the wheels of the very successful north-east inner city, NEIC, task force, which has seen €61 million of well-spent public money. I call on this Government to do the same for the south-west inner city. This is not party political, nor should it be. I know this will be supported by all reps in the area, most of whom attended last week's launch in Griffith College. Our children in Dublin 8 deserve the same access to health, education, community and sport facilities as much as the children in Raheny, Rathgar or Ranelagh. I thank the Deputy Leader. I want a debate on this issue in the Seanad and I intend to bring this request directly to our Cabinet Ministers. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-04-28/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:52+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-04-28