Vol. 118 No. 19
I have notice from Seantor Paul Bradford that he proposes to raise the following matter:
In view of the reduction of the annual State grants to the community development association, Muintir na Tíre, the need for funding to be provided from the national lottery.
My colleague, Senator Ferris, wishes to make a contribution and I will give him whatever time I have left at the end of my contribution.
I am pleased to have the opportunity to raise in the House the present financial problems faced by the Muintir na Tíre organisation. As the Minister is aware, last year was the golden jubilee of Muintire na Tíre. In its 50 years existence, we can safely say that no organisation throughout the country has done more for community development and for progress at local level than Muintir na Tíre. The Muintir na Tíre organisation was founded to promote self-help and self-reliance among rural communities and it has lived up to the ideals of its founding father, Canon Hayes. Any of us who is aware of the existence the community organisation, Muintir na Tíre, in his own area can illustrate by many examples the tremendous work they have done.
There are approximately 200 Muintir na Tíre community councils, with average of 25 to 30 members in each, so we are talking about a minimum of 5,000 committed Muintir na Tíre people throughout the country. The work they have done at local level has made a major difference to the economy of their areas. They have produced major local environment schemes, they have done tremendous work in relation to the tidy towns and tidy villages and have helped their own local areas attract tourists and industries. They have organised talent competitions, such as tops of the communities to foster entertainment among the members. Having seen some of these competitions, I must admit that they are to the fore in illustrating a depth of local talent — musical talent, singing and dancing, around the country — that we do not often see on television.
In my area, and throughout east Cork and the Cork county in general, the Muintir na Tíre organisation is very strong. The fruits of their work can be seen as you travel throughout the area. In a village called Conna, for instance, they have built a major sports complex, admittedly with the help of Government grants, but the local contribution was raised by Muintir na Tíre. The centre has made an enormous contribution to the area. They have been instrumental in attracting two factories to the area, and now many local people are employed in their own village.
Another village called Kilworth now boasts a very well known craft centre. This has been directly as a result of the efforts of the local Muintir na Tíre community council. Only a few months ago the work of this craft centre was on display in London. That is another typical example of the work being done by Muintir na Tíre. In the Carrigtwohill area of County Cork, there is a wood product factory which employs nine people. It is not receiving any State assistance and was the brainchild of Muintir na Tíre. That is another striking example of that organisation's success.
Another aspect of Muintir na Tíre's dedication is their community alert scheme which, at a time of growing threat to elderly people throughout the community, has been a tremendous source of help and encouragement. In many areas where the community councils exist, the signs as you enter those areas indicate a Muintir na Tíre community alert scheme is in operation. This is a trend we should welcome. Again, we can thank Muintir na Tíre for it.
My motion refers to the present severe financial difficulties being faced by Muintir na Tíre. The national office of Muintir na Tíre in Tipperary town has been receiving a grant of £30,000 from the Department of Agriculture since 1980. This grant has been cut to £15,000. The direct result of that cut is that the three staff at headquarters had to be laid off and the headquarters office closed. That was a retrograde step. It might be saving a very small amount of money in the short term, but it is doing untold damage to such a strong and valuable community organisation. The people involved in Muintir na Tíre have told me they are facing what they would consider a life or death situation as regards funding and the effects it is having on their organisation at local level. Without a headquarters and headquarters staff, they cannot receive the direction they would wish and they cannot operate without that assistance. It is absolutely vital that they receive funding from a central agency.
For some time they have been trying to avail of national lottery funds to help their financial plight. Indeed, no organisation is more fitting to receive national lottery funds than Muintir na Tíre. We hope national lottery funds will be used for the betterment of the organisations which would receive them. Undoubtedly any money received from any Government source by Muintir na Tíre will be used in a very fair and effective fashion. We need not worry about funds being wasted on an organisation such as this. Whatever they get they will spend wisely.
I am not sure why the Department of Agriculture have been the funding source down through the years. Perhaps, the Minister would explain that. Muintir na Tíre in recent months have made applications to quite a few Government Departments seeking funds. They have been unsuccessful so far in receiving anything extra from the Department of Agriculture and Food. They have also applied to the Department of Education for national lottery funds and have been turned down. They have applied to the Department of Health for lottery funds and have not received any reply so far, but are hoping for a positive response.
I hope the Minister will have good news in his reply and that the Government will be forthcoming with funds for Muintir na Tíre. Because of their present financial position Canon Hayes' house may have to be sold off. It would be an extremely retrograde step to see that memorial to such a great man having to be sold off due to a lack of funds. The £30,000 they received on an annual basis since 1980 was not even enough. That was the bare minmum they needed even to run a threadbare service. If we could at least get back to that starting point it would help.
In conclusion, I appeal to the Minister and to the Government to make funding available to Muintir na Tíre in the knowledge that it will be spent for the betterment of the community. The Government, community and taxpayers will get a tenfold return on whatever they make available to Muintir na Tíre.
I welcome the opportunity to join with my colleague, Senator Bradford, in speaking on this Adjourment Matter with particular reference to the drastic cut in the funding from the Department of Agriculture and Food to Muintir na Tíre. Muintir na Tíre were founded in the town of Tipperary by the late Canon John M. Hayes who was parish priest of my native village of Bansha for many years. I was involved with him directly in the initial stages of the youth movement within Muintir na Tíre which involved the young people in the parishes throughout the country where Muintir na Tíre were active. The concept of involvement in parish affairs through a formal structure which involved working people, business people, farmers, youth and women was probably 50 years in advance of people's thinking at that time. It produced a structure which has survived. Muintir na Tíre survived the changes in economic climate and became a major force in voluntary rural organisations. The very name, Muintir na Tíre, stems from the people of the land which is probably why they came under the Minister's jurisdiction for funding.
What a tragedy it would be if this Government, in their present restricted financial circumstances, were the cause of closing down one of the strongest voluntary organisations in the country. This organisation is doing work the Government could never do by bringing people in a community together to benefit from one another, and benefit themselves and the area as a result. They have been involved in every facet of community life and rural life: agricultural shows, variety shows, community alert programmes, tidy towns competitions, and all the items to which Senator Bradford referred, the whole concept of rural week, the election of the national executive and the prestige of a small organisation. They have staff and offices in many parts of the country, but particularly in Tipperary town where the organisation was founded. My colleague, the Government Whip, was an organiser for Muintir na Tíre and travelled the country with Fr. Hayes as I did. This is something which transcends the ordinary economics of cutbacks in various estimates.
We are making a plea to the Minister, whose Department have indicated a drop of 47 per cent in the grant-in-aid to all these organisations, thus reducing the Muintir na Tíre grant by 50 per cent, to use his good offices with every other Department affected by the work of Muintir na Tíre to increase the funding. The National Social Service Board, which the Government wanted to do away with and the concept of individuals being involved at community level, have an increased allocation this year. As the Government have seen the folly of their ways in that area, perhaps there are funds available to the National Social Service Board which could be diverted to Muintir na Tíre to prevent the closing of their head office which is next door to me. The staff who are on notice were involved since their school days and they are now faced with the prospect of a redundancy package and with unemployment. I am sorry that this has happened.
My next door neighbour, Michael Lynch, is the national president of Muintir na Tíre, a man who has devoted all his spare time and energies to the furtherance of the idea kindled by Fr. Hayes 50 years ago about the foundation of a movement and which has been subscribed to generously by bishops, archbishops, priests and civic leaders throughout the country. This was proved last year when they celebrated their golden jubilee and experts from all over the world came to listen to the message of Muintir na Tíre how they had succeeded in this country and how a similar association is to be started in Italy, America and in other countries where they had not even thought of involving people in a voluntary way.
There is nothing wrong in the Government supporting voluntary organisations such as this and, if the Minister's Department cannot match that challenge, he has an obligation to ensure that some other Department does so. Any assistance that could be given to Muintir na Tíre would be a welcome reprieve for a most prestigious voluntary organisation from which the Government and the country has got tremendous value for a very small outlay. I do not think any Member of this House, would oppose the concept of continuing that support, minimal though it was.
The Minister should also use his influence within the European Community. Tomás Roseingrave, who was a past officer of Muintir na Tíre, is a member of the Social and Economic Council and his office together with that of the Minister of State and the Minister, Deputy O'Kennedy, should be used to ensure that EC funding, structural funds or regional aid funds, is made available. Surely we are not bereft of ideas. We must put our heads together and try to prevent the closing down of Muintir na Tíre, the sacking of their staff with all the trauma involved for all the different parishes.
Today we have a united appeal. I am sure Senator Ryan will join with us in this appeal to the Minister to ensure that the Government are aware of how we feel Muintir na Tíre should be treated.
I come from Tipperary town and, as Senator Ferris said, I worked for Muintir na Tíre for a number of years as an organiser. I was going to school in the thirties when Muintir na Tíre were first established. They celebrated their 50th anniversary a few months ago. It would be a very sad day for Ireland if this organisation had to go out of existence. The £30,000 they received from the Department in recent years was their sole revenue. One may ask why the guilds of Muintir na Tíre throughout the country could not support headquarters but every guild has it own work to do. They are a community in themselves. They are trying to raise money for halls and everything else. When the chairman of Muintir na Tíre and the national executive and others said to me that they would have to close down and go out of existence I found it hard to believe this could happen in rural Ireland.
I am not putting the blame solely on the Department of Agriculture and Food. Muintir na Tíre should never have been under the Department of Agriculture and Food. I do not know how that happened. This year the Department had to cut all grants and subsidies of this kind by 50 per cent and Muintir na Tíre could not be classed as an exceptional case for funds. Muintir na Tíre should come under the area of responsibility of other Departments.
I understand that at present the Minister for Health is looking at Muintir na Tíre and hopes he will be able to make some money available from the national lottery. However, he has explained to me that he cannot just give money to Muintir na Tíre per se that any moneys given must be for a certain project, and the project he was considering was community alert. This was established some few years ago by Muintir na Tíre and is being carried out in most parishes. I am sure that that operation is saving the Department of Health some money, money that they might otherwise have to pay to community care personnel. In parishes where there is community alert in operation, there are fewer robberies and so on. People involved in community alert are on the lookout for old people especially, and if they do not see them around they call to their homes to see if they are all right.
I am aware of a parish in County Tipperary, that does not have the alert system, and where a man was dead in a house for three weeks this year before he was discovered. That is the type of work Muintir na Tíre are doing and I do hope that as a result of what has been said here today, and what has been said elsewhere, some Department in the Government could come up with, at least, the £15,000 that was taken from the organisation last year.
As a former member of Muintir na Tíre I would like to agree with everything that has been said so I will now call on the Minister to reply.
At the outset I would like to thank Senators Bradford, Ferris and Ryan for their contributions to this motion.
All of us who are committed to the well being of local communities and notably those in rural Ireland can identify strongly with the objectives and the work of Muintir na Tíre, an organisation established in 1937 by Canon Hayes. Muintir's expressed objective was the promotion of practical Christianity in the civic life of rural Ireland. In more specific terms Canon Hayes saw this objective being achieved through uniting communities in a spirit of community service, neighbourliness and self-reliance, through fostering advice, local patriotism and through fostering a sense of responsibility towards the needs and problems of the local community. Canon Hayes hoped also by this means to break down class antagonism and conflicts between sectional interests and to secure a unified community approach to solving the community's problems. This was at a time of considerable depression also in rural Ireland.
Since its foundation over 50 years ago now, the organisation has worked steadfastly and consistently for the betterment of local communities and has set a headline for all of us as to the benefits of a more participative and self-reliant society. Over the half century there have been many changes in the countryside with the growth of industrialisation, the exodus to cities and, more recently, the much increased prosperity of our agriculture. These developments while most welcome, brought with them also their own problems. But the basic tenets of Canon Hayes's approach to difficulties, those of self-help and self-reliance remain as valid today as they did in 1937.
The Minister for Agriculture and Food, Deputy O'Kennedy, will launch in the near future a programme of integrated rural development, on a pilot basis. No programme could have a serious chance of success unless it encouraged local communities to take a greater measure of responsibility for economic and social growth in their own areas. The thrust of the Government's proposals will be on fostering local initiative to achieve both economic and social development and to obtain this there is a need for a greater degree of co-operation of effort between the various State and voluntary organisations currently working to improve rural conditions.
The very essence of Muintir na Tíre is its independence and emphasis on voluntary service and participation in community effort. The State's contribution was always seen as a practical gesture in helping with its finances. Muintir na Tíre would never have wished to become dependent on the Exchequer. Nevertheless I recognise that finance can be a worry to voluntary organisations and fund raising can dissipate energies which could be put to better use.
Among others, Muintir na Tíre will have an important role to play in this developmental work since the improvements which have already been achieved by this organisation will form a groundwork on which future development can be built. It is only by taking control of their own destinies that communities can hope to achieve the kind of improvement which will lead to more jobs and better incomes and so make a better future for themselves and for their children in their own areas. The integrated rural development programme will help communities to help themselves and will be looking to existing organisations which have a history of achievement in this area to assist in this work.
It is a matter of great regret to the Government that having regard to the state of the national finances it found itself compelled this year of retrenchment to include its contribution to the running costs of Muintir na Tíre among the cutbacks. It did not, however, eliminate the contribution but reduced it from £30,000 to £15,000. The Minister for Agriculture and Food is not responsible for the disbursement of assistance from national lottery funds. He did, however, endeavour to have an allocation from this source made available to Muintir but has learned with regret that the Muintir area of activity is not at this moment one of those designated as eligible for lottery funding.
I would like to deal with one point that was raised by Senator Bradford in the course of his contribution. Apparently grant aid for Muintir na Tíre was started in 1956 on the Marshall Aid package, that was the agreement between Ireland and the USA where grants of £10,000 each were made from counterpart funds to Muintir na Tíre, Macra na Feirme and the ICA at that time.
I would like to say, in conclusion, that having listened to the various points made by the three Senators well and bearing in mind that the three are Munster men, two from Tipperary and one from Cork, and realising the importance of Muintir na Tíre which is near and dear to their hearts, I will have another look at the position regarding national lottery funds to see if anything can be done that will assist. I am not obviously in a position to make any promises at this moment but we will undertake to have another look at the matter. Senators are probably aware that the Taoiseach's Department deals with the lottery in so far as cultural matters are concerned so I will conclude by saying that we will have another look at it to see if any assistance can be got from any source for Muintir na Tíre.
The Seanad adjourned at 3.50 p.m. until 12 noon on Wednesday, 16 March 1988.
