During the construction of New Century House, one of the new, phase two buildings in the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC), some of the construction workers building it were diverted to St Lawrence O'Toole's primary school on Sheriff Street, at the other end of the Republic's economic universe.

The crew went to work on one of the school's classrooms, renovating it and turning it into a state-of-the-art computer room. When the work was finished, the crew returned to the multi-million pound development which was its main focus.

Likewise, some members of the team which built the improved Campshires on City Quay were sent, during the course of their work, to level the schoolyards in City Quay primary school and Westland Row CBS, which had been collecting surface water. In City Quay the contractors put in a winter garden with benches.

In all these cases, the cost of the work in the schools was split between the contractors concerned - Bennetts Construction and Rilmount Construction - and the Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA), the State agency overseeing the completion of the IFSC and the regeneration of the docklands generally.

The authority, as well as its commercial brief, is charged with improving social and economic conditions within its 1,300-acre area of responsibility. As part of this brief it has a multi-faceted social programme in place, involving ongoing input from the communities affected.

To guarantee the implementation of the various aspects of the DDDA's brief, a novel structure was put in place when the authority was being established by the then Minister for the Environment, Mr Brendan Howlin, in 1997.

As well as having employees, executives and a board, the Dublin Docklands Development Authority has a council which oversees the implementation of the masterplan for the area. The masterplan was itself approved by the council. Of the council's 25 members, seven are from various community groups active in the authority's area, and five more are local councillors. Other members include representatives of various Government agencies directly linked to developments in the docks.

"I'd have to say its positive, very positive," says Mr Gerry Fay, a member of the council and of the North Wall Community Association, when asked for his assessment of the authority's impact.

"Things have moved on tremendously since phase 1," - the first phase of the IFSC built under the brief of the Custom House Docks Development Authority. Programmes overseen and funded by the DDDA are producing advances in education and direct employment in the IFSC for local young people, he says. "The doors are beginning to open and the more people who go through the more will want to go through."

Mr Fay says that 40 years of decline and social exclusion - triggered by the economic collapse of the docklands communities following the introduction of containerisation in Dublin port - is now in the process of being reversed.

"Over the last two years I've seen people working and I've been staggered. Some of these people come from homes where no-one has worked for two generations."

But for Mr Fay the central aspect of the whole programme is the emphasis on education. "More people are staying on board in the education system, that's the main thing." Traditionally people in the docklands did not have much regard for education, he says, with jobs being handed down from father to son. "But for everything now you need education or you're dead in the water."

In the autumn, work is due to begin on a new campus for the National College of Ireland, the former college of industrial relations, which is moving to a site beside where the old Sheriff Street flats used to stand.

Substantial work is necessary before local people will be able to attend the campus. An ESRI survey in 1996 found that 35 per cent of the children in the area left school before they were 12, and that 60 per cent had left by the time they were 16. Only 13 per cent attained a Leaving Certificate.

Mr Seanie Lamb, chairman of the Inner City Organisations Network and a member of the DDHA council, says that what is occurring at this stage is that the authority hopes that the initial participants in the various programmes will act as role models for other local children - both in terms of what can be achieved educationally and in the labour market, with support networks being put in place for those who might wish to emulate these early success stories.

The DDDA's social programmes involve improved educational services from pre-primary level up to third level. The measures are reportedly already making an impact and new ESRI statistics to be published in the autumn are expected to show this.

Mr Gerry Kelly, the authority's director of social programmes, believes the various educational, apprenticeship and employment programmes being put in place will in time radically alter the ESRI statistics.

A key aspect of many of the programmes is the close mentoring of the young people involved, so that problems identified at an early stage can be rectified. This level of attention is considered necessary, given the social disadvantage the young people are striving to overcome.

A number of IFSC companies take part in a programme where local students are told that, if they pass their Leaving Certificate, they will be guaranteed a job for a year in the IFSC, irrespective of their grades. During the year the authority provides evening computer and financial services courses to the qualifying school leavers.

Money should not be a problem. The authority makes considerable surpluses from its management of the docklands. Last year its turnover was £30 million and an operational surplus of £14.5 million. As well as funding educational programmes, supporting local cultural and community events and improving local infrastructure, the authority also gives capital grants to local applicants. It gave more than £1 million in 60 per cent matched funding towards a new community workshop off Seville Place, which is to be used for computer courses, education for early school leavers, and other activities.

However, booming property prices are a problem. "If the masterplan is to regenerate local communities, then the priority issue is homes," says Ms Betty Ashe, a member of the authority council and employment services manager at the St Andrew's Resource Centre on Pearse Street.

"We can address the changing working environment but we can't do that with homes," she says. "The population is going to grow but we need to have indigenous people as well as the new dwellers."

The fractious relationship which existed between the IFSC and the local communities in the early and mid 1990s seems to have changed. There is a greater sense of inclusion and of trust, says Mr Kelly. Large scale developments being constructed without consultation with the local community are no longer feasible, he says.