Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 25 November 2014
218. Deputy Michael Healy-Rae asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the position regarding a report (details supplied) by the Commission for the Economic Development of Rural Areas; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [44996/14]
View answerQuite significant efforts are being made to progress the implementation of the report of the Commission for the Economic Development of Rural Areas (CEDRA) which was launched in April 2014.
Following its launch, the Government appointed Ann Phelan, T.D. as Minister of State with specific responsibility for implementation of the CEDRA report in July of this year. As the deputy is aware, CEDRA is a broad multi-sectoral report containing 34 recommendations on actions to be taken on areas as diverse as investment and finance, local enterprise support, community capability building, social enterprise, broadband, roads, water, rural transport, artisan foods, creative industries, tourism & recreation, marine and renewable energy.
Its effective implementation requires an integrated response from a wide variety of agencies, so to assist her in her work, Minister Phelan established a high level Inter-Departmental Group (IDG) involving all the main departmental actors dealing with CEDRA recommendations. There have been two meetings of this group with the third scheduled for December. To date, an initial evaluation of each recommendation has been completed, lead responsibility for all actions has been assigned in line with statutory responsibility and a multi-sectoral CEDRA work programme with specific actions and timelines, up to end 2015 is being finalised.
Finally, besides coordinating the implementation of the multi-sectoral CEDRA programme, Minister Phelan is in the process of identifying a few priority proposals to support the economic development of rural communities. To help stimulate these proposals, an allocation of €1 million has been provided in the 2015 budget for a Rural Innovation and Development Fund to support innovative and small scale pilot initiatives under the CEDRA report. Work on these proposals is progressing well and will be brought to forthcoming CEDRA meetings.
