Disadvantaged communities from across Ireland will "be beating a path to Fatima Mansions" in Dublin to see how successful regeneration is done, President Mary McAleese told residents there at the weekend.
At the publication of the area's social regeneration plan, Great Expectations, the President said the Fatima Mansions regeneration board was "setting an agenda for disadvantaged communities everywhere".
"You are showing what can be done. And the best is yet to come," she said.
The social regeneration plan is intended to underpin the physical regeneration which has been underway for four years. The flats, built in the 1950s, became synonymous with acute social deprivation, serious drugs problems and housing difficulties.
Six weeks ago Taoiseach Bertie Ahern presented the keys to the first residents of houses in the €200 million physical regeneration.
The Great Expectations plan sets out 37 actions "to develop and sustain the social, economic and cultural life of this community". It focuses on education, health and wellbeing, employment and training, arts, sports and the environment.
It plans projects to support vulnerable families; the consolidation and expansion of the Homework Club service; an increase in pre- and after-school services; the establishment of a range of training courses and the appointment of an arts development co-ordinator.
