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Community Development Projects

Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 17 February 2022

Thursday, 17 February 2022

Questions (7)

David Stanton

Question:

7. Deputy David Stanton asked the Minister for Rural and Community Development the measures being taken by her Department to support communities and to encourage community activities and events as Covid-19 restrictions begin to ease; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [8573/22]

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Oral answers (6 contributions)

This question has to do with the fact that many communities have been locked up for a number of years now with Covid-19 and are beginning to come back out into the open again. We all know how important it is for mental and physical health that communities are active and can get together to do things. Very often, they do not have places for this. What supports are the Minister of State and the Department putting in place to enable this to happen?

I thank the Deputy for his question. Given my Department's remit in supporting the economic and social development of rural Ireland and community development throughout the country, many of our existing funding schemes support the response to and the recovery from the pandemic. However, a number of specific targeted measures are aimed at directly supporting the Covid-19 response and recovery in communities right across the country.

Through the Covid-19 stability fund, my Department supported 863 organisations in 2020 and 2021 with total funding of approximately €48.8 million. This funding enables organisations to continue to deliver vital services to the most vulnerable in our communities during the pandemic.

The community enhancement programme provides vital supports to assist local groups to reopen their facilities post Covid-19. The programme provided €4.5 million funding in 2021 for small capital grants for the improvement of facilities and it is planned to run the scheme again in 2022.

We also recently launched a €9 million community activities fund to support community and voluntary groups affected by Covid-19. This fund will help community groups, especially in disadvantaged areas with running costs such as utility and insurance bills, as well as with improvements to the facilities. In order to ensure that funding is targeted to where it is most needed in each local authority area, it will be administered locally by the local community development committees.

My Department's committee services programme supports over 420 community organisations to provide local services through a social enterprise model with a co-funding model of €19,000 paid towards the cost of each agreed full-time equivalent position and €32,000 paid towards the cost of each manager position. The transitional LEADER programme also runs until the end of 2022, with €65 million available to local action groups who deliver the programme and approve projects at local level. Some €20 million of this is funded by the European Union recovery instrument to enable local communities and enterprises to respond and recover from the Covid-19 pandemic. In addition, adjustments to programmes delivered by my Department, such as the town and village renewal and CLÁR programmes, are made where required to further support communities.

I thank the Minister of State for his response. I congratulate him and his Department on the work they are doing and the money that is being made available. Much of the money that is being put forward is dependent on facilities being made available such as playing fields, playgrounds, sports facilities, halls and so forth. In many instances, where communities have expanded greatly in the past number of years, there are no such facilities except the local school.

I draw the Minister of State's attention to guidelines on the use of school buildings outside of school hours which were issued in October 2017 by the Department of Education and Skills which encouraged the use of local schools but in many instances these school buildings are not available. Doors are locked at 3 p.m. or 3.30 p.m. There are fantastic sports halls and community rooms in these schools. They are all locked up all evening and all night and are not available to communities. Would the Minister of State consider looking at these guidelines to see what could be done to encourage and support the schools and the communities to make these facilities available? Does the Minister of State not agree that this kind of move would be of great benefit, especially where there are no community halls, rooms or sports facilities available to communities?

I thank the Deputy. I should mention to him that the forthcoming community centre fund may also be of relevance.

Specifically on the question about schools, I can certainly identify with that because there are plenty of examples I can think of where there are large rooms available that are not always accessible. Ultimately, it is, I presume, a question for the boards of management of these schools. I hope that as we come out of Covid-19 that we will have some positive announcements in the coming days on the easing of restrictions and that the schools may be more open to doing this then. Obviously, for the past two years, the boards of management of schools have been very reluctant to rent those rooms out, and, of course, they were not allowed to do so.

On another aspect, I have talked a great deal about facilities under the community employment programme, CEP, and the community activities fund. There is also the Tidy Towns initiative for activating community groups. The Minister should be making an announcement about the 2022 competition soon. Some €1.5 million is being put towards that initiative last year and it is a great way of activating communities at a very grassroots level.

I thank the Minister of State for his response/ I acknowledge that there are many schools which open their doors and make their facilities available. There are also quite a number of them that do not and will not. It is wrong that we have hundreds of millions of euros being made available by the taxpayer for these facilities and yet the boards of management and the management of the schools refuse to even engage with local community groups who are crying out for activities and are worried about their children hanging around the streets at night with nowhere to go. We know where that can lead.

I ask the Minister of State to consider some proactive measures to reach out and engage with these schools and communities and to call on them publicly to make their facilities available? Perhaps we can also use some of the funding that is out there - the Minister of State outlined tens of millions of euros in that regard - to cover the insurance and the caretaker costs that are very often used as a reason why schools will not be made available. Would the Minister of State not agree with me that it is wrong that these facilities are locked up, especially where there is nothing available in a community which may have expanded, with many new housing developments and many teenagers hanging around with nowhere to go. This is a positive move which does not cost a great deal of money because the facilities are already there.

I again thank the Deputy. In respect of any improvements or adjustments that schools might wish to make, that is definitely not within our Department's bailiwick but it may be something we can talk to the Minister for Education about.

I will take this question on board because it is a good one. We all are aware of space that is available in communities but which is not always accessible. We have a responsibility to at least make an inquiry as to what we can do in that regard. However, we are talking about facilities that are funded by another Department and have independent boards of management. We cannot force anybody to do this but we can certainly explore how we can encourage it and say that we would be supportive of a move to make such facilities more active.

Regarding the Deputy's initial question on supporting community activities, we have a big day coming up next month with St. Patrick's Day. My colleague, the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Deputy Catherine Martin, will be doing a great deal to support cultural and artistic events. I have not looked forward to a St. Patrick's Day as much as I am looking forward to the one coming up. Many people across communities in the country will be looking forward to it as well. The Government, and the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media will certainly support those activities and help people to get out and socialise again.

Question No. 8 replied to with Written Answers.
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