On October 18, 2004 the Tallaght West Childhood Development Initiative (CDI) held a public meeting in Tallaght, Co. Dublin to launch this research report. Approximately 200 individuals were present at the meeting, including local TD’s and county councillors. The CDI intentionally chose the format of a ‘public meeting’ to launch the research instead of a more traditional ‘speeches by the authors’ format. We wished to formally engage the communities of Tallaght West in the development of what we view as a unique opportunity to bring about substantial and lasting change in the lives of children and families in Tallaght West. We wanted to hear what they think and to take this into account as we move to the next phase of this initiative, which is to develop a 10 year strategy to bring about measurable improvement in the healthy development and educational achievement of the children in Tallaght West.

The community response to this report included what they liked about the research, what concerns they had, and what they felt were some of the most important challenges that must be addressed so that the CDI could meet its goals and objectives. The CDI promised that it would take these responses into account and come back to the community.

There were four primary areas of concern:
(1) the negative media coverage associated with the publication of the research;
(2) the methodology employed in the research, particularly its claim to be representative of the community;
(3) questions with regard to understanding the meaning of some of the statistical findings;
(4) ways of ensuring ongoing community participation in the development of the 10 year strategy.