Pubdate: Tue, 19 October 1999 Source: Examiner, The (Ireland) Copyright: Examiner Publications Ltd, 1999 Contact: http://www.examiner.ie/ Author: Vivion Kilfeather 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. - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D