Fifteen Dublin community groups involved in a scheme to bring disadvantaged young "dropouts" back into education have pleaded with the Minister for Education to provide them with mainstream funding.
At a pre-Budget press conference yesterday, the co-ordinator of the Line Projects, Mr Michael O'Connor, asked the Minister, Mr Martin, to make good his promise to "find a sub-heading" in the Department's budget for their work.
He said the Minister had promised to come back to them by the end of November, "and we are still waiting".
The Line Projects work with hundreds of young people aged 13-18 in the inner city, west and north Dublin, Tallaght and Dun Laoghaire who have dropped out of school or are at risk of dropping out due to poverty, family breakdown, emotional and health problems. Many of them abuse alcohol and drugs and are involved in crime.
The community and youth groups are proposing 30 projects to reach over 1,000 vulnerable young people, at an initial cost of £9.5 million. They would provide locally managed child care, training, education, counselling and employment in deprived areas. The model for the Line Projects is the successful Carline project started in Neilstown in south-west Dublin in 1993. This is now funded mainly by the Eastern Health Board, has two teachers seconded from the Department of Education and has recently built two all-purpose workshops for a wide range of motor mechanics, horticulture, computer skills, child care, counselling and education programmes.
A number of Carline students have returned to full-time education and passed the Junior Certificate exam.
Two related projects, the Phoenix project in the North Circular Road and the City Motor Sports project, have been set up in the past three years.
Launching the Line Projects Budget document yesterday, Sister Stanislaus Kennedy pleaded with Mr Martin and the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, to provide "integrated" funding for areas where old community structures had broken down.
She said the only way to combat poverty, crime and drug abuse in these areas was to fund a strategic proposal such as the Line Projects, rather than to "spend £100,000 here and £100,000 there - that's no strategy, that's satisfying the lobbies".
One of the founders of the Carline project, Sister Carmel Earls, said she had a dream that for the Millennium the Government would help her and her fellow-workers "take care of 2,000 young people with shattered lives, and help them take their rightful place in Irish society rather than ending up on the streets, in jail and involved in drugs and crime. That would be a real celebration of the Millennium in this city."
Sister Stanislaus said the Government should view the Line Projects as "very innovative" because they would empower local communities to take responsibility for their people.
A Department of Education spokesman said the Minister was examining a range of projects to respond effectively to the problems of vulnerable young people, and pointed to the 8- to 15-year-olds pilot project as one he had already set in train.