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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 28 Oct 1992

Vol. 424 No. 5

Adjournment Debate. - Leader Programme in Tipperary.

A Cheann Comhairle, I appreciate the opportunity you have given to me to raise a matter which is the subject of serious concern in County Tipperary. It is causing a great deal of anger and frustration, is the subject of rumour and counter-rumour, allegation and gossip and, if allowed to carry on without clarification, it will completely undermine the hopes and aspirations of a number of people who have invested heavily of their time and resources. I refer to the Leader programme, a scheme designed to give a substantial boost to entrepreneurial flair in rural development and the means by which talent and ambition could bring dreams to fruition. The exact opposite has happened. Not alone have dreams been savagely shattered, but a number of people have been driven to the edge of despair by the manner in which they have been treated and by the way their plans for the future have been trampled on.

The Leader programme in Tipperary is being administered by the Tipperary Enterprise Company, an organisation set up initially to promote the county and its products. It is now clearly evident that this was a major mistake in relation to the Leader programme. Far from being administered, the scheme is in a state of dissaray and appears to be in a hopeless tangle. The reason for this is that Tipperary Enterprise lacks the administrative structure to properly look after such a scheme and should not have been the vehicle chosen to do so in the first place, given that Shannon Development and Tipperary County Councils already had the administrative structures and expertise to discharge the responsibilities of a scheme involving £2.5 million of public money. The board of Tipperary Enterprise are all highly competent people, chosen because of their excellence in their own fields of endeavour. Their individual competence or ability is not in question. What is at issue is why the responsibility for the Leader programme was handed to a company which simply do not have the administrative backup necessary for the proper execution of their duties in this matter.

A number of projects which had been prepared for submission to the Leader programme and which were destined for financial assistance — some of these had been given unequivocal verbal assurances and others written assurances that support would be forthcoming — eventually found themselves caught up in a morass of conflicting replies, half truths and plain downright bungling. One project was submitted last year and was given approval in late 1991 to go ahead. On the basis of a written assurance from Tipperary Enterprise, the project organisers went ahead and arranged bridging finance. They were assured that the project was excellent, that it passed the feasibility study and received written confirmation that it met all the Leader guidelines. Yet a bare two months later the amount of money promised was slashed from £30,000 to £10,000 despite the organisers having already committed themselves to a substantial bank overdraft. It took a further two months of hassle and extreme difficulty to get a payment through a bank account in Clonmel. This action has effectively scuttled the project and wasted public and private funds. This is not what was envisaged for the Leader progrmme.

The abysmal standards of administration and the total lack of professionalism in the scheme are illustrated by the way in which a community-based project in Borrisokane, sponsored by Tipperary Lakeside Development Company is being betrayed. In its original format, the project was included as an integral part of the Tipperary Enterprise Leader submission to Brussels and the organisers were given to understand that the application was successful under four broad headings. That was over 18 months ago and now, despite having a massive voluntary input into the project, despite having a number of business people waiting to move into premises, despite having appointed a project director and having leased a property from Shannon Development, no definite funding has been forthcoming. Co-operation from Tipperary Enterprise has been badly lacking and in fact promises already made are being reneged upon. One of the people intimately involved in the project has told me that from their earliest dealings with Tipperary Enterprise they have been appalled by the lack of business practice, even to the basic courtesy of answering letters. I understand that Tipperary Enterprise Company are presently functioning without a chief executive, that telephone calls are responded to only by an answering machine, that staff have been disemployed and that they are now operating with a skeleton staff. The company have serious financial problems.

Very serious questions are awaiting reply. Is the Minister aware through his Department's representative on the board, of the alarming, disgraceful and unacceptable level of incompetence displayed by administrators purporting to represent Tipperary Enterprise and the Leader programme? Is he further aware that by defaulting on commitments an appalling level of financial hardship, mental stress and strain has been inflicted on individuals whose dreams have been shattered. Where does the accountability lie in this case, and what steps is the Minister taking to ensure that all promises given will be substantiated with finance?

I ask the Minister how much money has actually been handed over to Tipperary Enterprise for disbursement under the Leader programme? Could the Minister also tell us, how much of the money has been spent to date on approved projects, and how many they are in number? Further, could I ask the Minister how much has been spent on the administration of the programme by Tipperary Enterprise and what percentage this forms of the total amount handed over?

Is the Minister satisfied that the budgetary guidelines are being met, and that administrative spending is within the ratio laid down? Is the Minister satisfied that applicant project submissions are being examined and treated in a dispassionate and objective fashion, since many worthwhile projects are not being accepted and there appears to be a degree of selective subjectivity in some assessments that have been accepted? Who has the final decision on the eligibility of projects offered? Could the Minister even attempt to explain how an executive of a company disbursing money on behalf of his Department could sign a contract for £89,000 for a computer which, a short time later, has current value of £15,000? These questions must be answered as a matter of urgency in order to protect the future of the Leader programme and to assure the public that the confusion, anomalies and administrative failures will be corrected to enable the scheme to be conducted in an orderly and proper fashion.

I appreciate Deputy Lowry's concern and I am disappointed to hear his analysis of the Leader management team in Tipperary. He has outlined for me and for Members of the House a number of very serious anomalies as he has presented them. I want to assure the Deputy that the statement which he has made here tonight vis-á-vis the operation of Leader management in Tipperary will be fully examined and analysed by me immediately.

At the outset I should say — I am sure most Deputies know and I do not wish to spend time explaining this — that Leader is the EC's own initiative in rural development. The programme runs for the period 1991-93 and is funded to some £35 million; £21 million is provided from the European Community and £14 million is provided by national funds. It is being made available for 16 Irish groups covering about half the country. The programme is a pilot one with limited funding and so it is not possible to cover all parts of the country.

The purpose of Leader is to assist rural communities to develop their own areas in accordance with their own priorities. The essential approach, therefore, is what is popularly called "bottom up" development. In line with this, the most significant feature of the programme is that the decisions about the investments to be undertaken with the global grants provided by the EC and the national authorities rests with the groups themselves. In effect, the groups are the grant-giving agencies in their own respective areas for the purposes of the investment categories set out in the Leader programme such as, rural tourism, small firms, craft enterprises and local services.

I want to explain the role of my Department in this important initiative. The EC has designated the Department as the so-called "intermediary body" in Ireland, that is, the organisation responsible for its implementation here from a national point of view. For this purpose there is a formal legal agreement between the EC Commission and the Department on the one hand and between the Department and each Leader group on the other. These agreements clearly spell out the respective duties and obligations of each of the parties which is necessary to ensure the smoothest possible operation of the programme.

In addition, my Department have provided all the groups here with comprehensive guidelines on the operation of the programme to ensure both that the group's operations are compatible with EC and national sectoral policies as regards granting of aid, and that there is a maximum co-operation at local level with all the official grant-giving agencies. In addition officials of my Department are available at all reasonable times for consultation on any difficulties that may be encountered at local level by these individual Leader groups. Arrangements have also been made for periodic visits by inspectors of the Department to the group to discuss and monitor their progress.

These mechanisms have been put in place not to hinder or limit the operations of the groups but to ensure that the "bottom up" principle can be exercised to the maximum in the full spirit of the programme as intended.

I have had the privilege of being involved with the formal launching of some of the Irish Leader groups including Tipperary, in recent months and participating in other functions organised by the various groups. On these and on other occasions I have been at pains to stress my total commitment to the principles of Leader and my concern that the opportunities provided by the programme be grasped by these individual groups. In this connection I cannot emphasise too often that the success of Leader rests ultimately on the groups themselves and that this will determine to a significant degree the decision on whether the EC Commission will launch a second Leader programme for the post-1993 period.

I hope I have made it clear how this innovative programme is intended to work. I am fully supportive of the groups' efforts in making it a success — and will do everything I can to help and to iron out any difficulties that may arise from time to time. The onus to making Leader work in practice rests, as I have indicated, primarily on the capacity and enthusiasm of the local groups. Both the EC Commission and the Irish authorities have entrusted the programme to them on the basis of the quality of the business plans they submitted for funding last year. Now we are at the stage where the groups must repay that trust. This is the first time that local groups are being given the resources to undertake the development of their areas, based on their own priorities rather than on what has been decided for them elsewhere. On the evidence to date I am convinced that these groups are succeeding. I do not wish to delay the House but I want to reiterate that I take seriously the points raised by the Deputy in the House tonight. As I said in my opening comments, I will have these allegations investigated immediately.

Will the Minister give a commitment that he will give me a response in due course?

Absolutely. The people involved in these programmes are entitled to receive explanations as to how the Leader groups operate.

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