JOBS BOOST PLAN FOR INNER CITY RESIDENTS

A NEW five year action plan for Dublin's north east inner city aims to
secure benefits for the local people of the major economic and social
developments in the area.

The Inner City Organisation's Network (ICON) was set up about 20 years ago
and is the umbrella body for more than 80 organisations and projects.

It has now produced a document entitled The Next Steps Towards Inner City
renewal, dealing with the difficulties facing this marginalised urban area.

It is divided into four themes: economic development/jobs, drugs, family and
community and education. ICON can boast of many previous successes in
shaping Government initiatives in inner city areas.

Following representation from ICON and local projects, the Docklands
Development Authority produced a master plan of its own which included the
provision that 20% of the jobs should go to local people and 20% of the
housing should be social or affordable.

Other examples of the success ICON has achieved is the local Drugs Task
Forces based on the ICON Inter Agency Drugs project.

In addition, ICON developed the original initiative on which the
Government's Integrated Services Process is modelled. This brings together,
for the first time, the various government departments and statutory
agencies, ensuring more effective solutions and better targeting of resources.

The plan focuses on the following:

Local people should benefit from the major economic and social developments
taking place in the inner city area.

An inner city education task force is to be established.

To alleviate drug problems in the inner city more residential facilities are
needed along with after hours crisis intervention and recovering drug users
should be helped into employment.

ICON Action Plan spokesperson Seanie Lamb said local people, under the
auspices of ICON, had previously developed solutions to challenging problems
and they hoped to repeat that in their latest plan but it would only be
achieved through resources from the Government, statutory agencies and the
social partners.

He said much new employment had come into the Docklands area but it largely
involved white collar or highly skilled workers. These, he said, were jobs
the mostly unskilled labour force had not been trained to take up so the
rate of local unemployment was still more than double the national average.