Trevor Sargent
Ceist:42 Mr. Sargent asked the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs the measures, if any, he plans to implement as part of his remit to bring about greater self reliance in communities. [16511/97]
Written Answers - Community Support Programmes.
Michael Ferris
Ceist:46 Mr. Ferris asked the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs the measures, if any, he has introduced to develop specialised investment programmes for women's groups, men's groups, and family support groups; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16503/97]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 42 and 46 together.
The Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs operates a range of support programmes for community groups, including grant schemes for women's groups, men's groups, lone parent groups and the community development programme. The objective of all these schemes is to enable disadvantaged communities to work in a practical way to address the issues that face them, to foster greater self-reliance and community leadership and to support a process of community and personal development in disadvantaged communities.
I intend to develop a range of programmes to support local communities, including the community development programme, CDP, under which funding is provided towards staffing and equipping local resource centres which provide a focal point for community development activities in an area and to other specialist community development projects. Partnership 2000 contains a commitment to the pro-active targeting of 30 new areas for the establishment of new CDP projects over the next three years. An expert technical group has been appointed to assist and advise me in that regard. The group has the following functions: (a) advising me on applications received from groups for funding under the programme; and (b) assisting the Department in drawing up a list of 30 priority areas to be targeted for the development of new projects over the next three years. Work on drawing up the priority list is well under way.
In addition to the main community development programme, the Department has funded on a pilot basis a number of family resource centres since 1994. A review of these centres was commissioned by the Department in 1996 and has recently been published. The review recommends continued support for local community-managed resource centres providing family support services and the main thrust of the report has, as already announced, been accepted.
Reviews of the scheme of grants to locally-based women's groups and the scheme of grants to locally-based men's groups are being finalised. These reviews were undertaken to examine the effectiveness of these grants in meeting the needs of the groups they target and to recommend a framework for the future support and funding of women's and men's groups. The outcome of these reviews will be taken into account in developing future policy in this area.
The community development education and training grants scheme enhances the capacity of local community groups to operate effectively by providing funding to assist with training for management and strategic planning.
As Minister with responsibility for the political oversight of the national anti-poverty strategy, NAPS, I will also be working with other key Cabinet colleagues on the Cabinet committee on social inclusion towards achieving the objectives and targets of the NAPS.