Vol. 454 No. 6
11 Mr. Cowen asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Forestry the type of projects grant-aided under Leader I which are being excluded from Leader II by new guidelines; and the percentage of total funds in Leader I granted to such projects which are now deemed ineligible under Leader II. [11449/95]
In general, given the requirement for innovation insisted on by the EU Commission, the projects eligible for aid under mainstream programmes and schemes cannot be aided under Leader II. In addition, projects or activities which are prevented from being aided because of national or EU policy considerations may not be supported by Leader either.
Examples of the type of projects aided in Leader I which are not now eligible for aid are golf courses, farm relief services and horse breeding schemes principally because they are aided by other continuous schemes.
As the Deputy knows, the central feature of Leader is that decisions on the projects to be aided are taken by the Leader groups. Consequently, the detailed information on each Leader I project is with the groups, rather than my Department. I am not in a position to make a definitive judgement in the 3,000 or so cases involved, as to whether they would or would not in whole or in part qualify for aid under Leader II.
Extracting the very detailed information from the groups in order to answer the latter part of the Deputy's question would mean deferring more pressing and urgent work in the implementation of Leader II by my Department and could not be justified.
I am satisfied that sufficient worthwhile projects and capacity-building opportunities remain open to Leader groups to ensure the maximum effectiveness of the programme while also respecting the need to operate in a manner which is additional to other publicly-funded measures.
The reply is most unsatisfactory because, as the Minister knows, two meetings were held on 12 and 13 June in Athlone explaining the new guidelines his Department is imposing on these Leader groups. I have asked what percentage of the total funds deemed to be eligible will not now be eligible under the provisions of Leader I. That figure should be easily extrapolated given that the Minister and his officials have devised these new guidelines. I might remind the Minister of State that the Leader-type approach is based on the involvement of local communities charting their development. Is he aware there is enormous conviction among those Leader groups that that vital ingredient in the success of the pilot programme is absent from Leader II; that there is growing dismay among Leader groups about the possible effectiveness of their proposals, which have had to be revised because of under-investment in Leader II? Does he realise there is dismay at the imposition from the top which flies in the face of the philosophy of Leader I which entailed bottom-up development? Is he also aware that there are meetings taking place to ascertain whether such groups can go ahead with this scheme established by his Department?
I reject the assertion that there is growing dismay. Many groups are very enthusiastic about putting their programmes in place and anxious to go ahead with them. We had to put these guidelines in place to protect the integrity of Leader. I do not have to remind the House that the Comptroller and Auditor General, in many instances, was very critical of the manner in which some Leader schemes were handled. All of us are aware of major examples of Leader groups who did not operate in accordance with the specified guidelines. The main problem arose from the flexibility clause which allowed some groups to put in place schemes never intended by the European Union, leaving us no option but to remove that flexibility clause. There remains major scope for innovation, capacity-building and for providing projects in rural areas under the scheme. Therefore, I am confident that Leader II will act as a catalyst for the rejuvenation and renewal of rural Ireland. The objective of the programme, published by the European Union, is to stimulate innovative measures for rural development, to ensure that the programmes finances contribute to real value-added in relation to other operations part-financed by the operational programmes, and other forms of assistance under the Community Support Framework and do not serve to finance activities already being carried out by others engaged in the rural development process. When Leader I was established we did not have the ADMs or the county enterprise boards. We want to prevent overlapping and ensure that Leader funding will be invested in projects that cannot be grant-aided under those programmes. That is very important.
Is it not true that the Minister's Department had no option but to remove the flexibility clause, because the Leader programme is being penalised on the basis of three groups in respect of which some modifications were suggested by the Comptroller and Auditor General, out of a total of 16 groups, under the pilot scheme? Is the Minister aware that the independent assessment carried out by his Department under Dr. Brendan Kearney confirmed it had been the most successful rural community development programme within the European Union under that pilot scheme? Furthermore, his Department appears to have obtained from its political masters an agreement that, because of some slight criticism, by the Comptroller and Auditor General in respect of a minority of those groups, the present increased number of groups should be penalised. Will he not reconsider this omission of the flexibility clause, which represented the only guarantee that the development thereunder would be a bottom-up type, enabling local communities rather than his Department to identify their needs? Will the Minister not accept the independent assessment of Dr. Brendan Kearney under the aegis of his Department? Will he also accept that his attempt to blacken all groups because of a few problems under the pilot scheme was wrong, and the problem could easily have been dealt with without omitting this vital flexibility clause allowing local communities identify their needs?
The Deputy has asked a number of questions. There is no intention to uniformly blacken the people who operated Leader I.
Why withdraw the flexibility clause?
The guidelines currently in place were taken from the report by Kearney Consultants, the EU report, our own analysis of Leader I and from suggestions made in the Comptroller and Auditor General's report. Having examined this programme closely for the past six months, I am confident it will not adversely affect the effectiveness of Leader II. Very few projects will not qualify for grant aid under Leader II.
The Minister of State cannot give me an answer. He is saying "very few". I looked for a percentage and the Minister said he could not give it to me. He said he was busy doing other things.
There were 3,000 projects. It would take months for Department officials to evaluate each project to see if they qualified under Leader I.
It has been evaluated ad nauseam.
We must proceed to other questions. The time for dealing with priority questions is all but exhausted.
In defence of the officials in that section of Leader, the previous Government had a very small unit administering a very important scheme.
Because the groups were running the scheme.
We were able to deploy some people to that scheme.
Now the mandarins are running the scheme.
The Deputy should allow me to continue. I have been keeping in close contact with the new and old groups throughout the country and I am convinced the majority are satisfied with the guidelines set down for Leader II. They feel they can make a major contribution and that they can use those guidelines to protect themselves.
No flexibility clause.
We have learned from Leader I, a pilot programme which was meant to be a learning experience. We have gained that experience and we have put guidelines in place as a result. The Deputy can come back to me in two years time and say if we have failed.
I will, and before then.
