Poverty experienced by five key groups of people will be targeted over the next year, Dublin City Council has promised.
Homeless people in public areas, Travellers, lone parents, disadvantaged children aged four to 10, and at-risk children from birth to age 18, will be targeted in a concerted way by all Government agencies, in a plan launched yesterday by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.
One of the five groups will be the focus in each of the five geographical areas administered by Dublin City Council.
The commitment is made in a report on levels of poverty and social exclusion in the city, where deprivation in key areas was found to have worsened "over the 11-year period to 2002".
The report, Inclusion is Everyone's Business, is a snapshot of deprivation in Dublin city, and says "the lack of improvement in deprivation scores for Dublin city since 1991 is indicative of inter-generational deprivation in certain areas".
It looks at poverty and social exclusion experienced by 10 target groups including children, the elderly, the homeless, ethnic minorities, people with disabilities and lone parents.
Among these groups it finds levels of acute poverty in parts of Dublin have not changed in recent years despite numerous anti-poverty strategies.
Overall, 5.9 per cent less of the population is scoring at the very lowest level, ie, experiencing relative affluence, than in 1991.
While the Dublin Fingal, Dublin South and Dún Laoghaire- Rathdown areas score well in terms of low risk of income poverty, "the Dublin City Council area has twice the income poverty risk of these areas".
The most disadvantaged electoral division areas are "largely located in a linear pattern running east to west through the city centre with clusters in Finglas, Cabra, Ballymun and Priorswood".
While the central area will target the homeless in public areas, north-central will target Travellers, south central will target lone parents hoping to return to education or work, the south-east will target children at risk aged four to 10, and the north-west will target disadvantaged children from birth to 18.
Peter Finnegan, director of the City Development Board, described the report and the commitments a "unique milestone in our journey towards a more integrated and inclusive city".
"For the first time agencies and organisations who are central to the battle against social exclusion have combined their efforts and made a solemn commitment to target a specific group in the coming year." Acknowledging the ambitious nature of the commitment, he said the "multi-agency" approach to the problems was achievable.
"Instead of looking at just the problems being faced by a family or individual, we will look at the underlying root causes."
It would entail health workers, social workers, educators and others working together and sharing information.
"Data sharing will be a key issue," he said.
To improve target groups' uptake of services, funding for programmes aimed at them will be increased, new programmes may be initiated and service providers will co-ordinate their work "wherever possible", the plan says.
Mr Ahern said anyone experiencing poverty did so at numerous levels.
"If we are to reverse the cycle of exclusion we must combine the resources of different agencies working together at local level."
Five social inclusion task forces have been set up.
