Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 6 Mar 2003

Vol. 562 No. 6

Departmental Programmes.

Mr. Rabbitte

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for selecting this issue which has somehow escaped scrutiny in the House. On 8 February 2001, the Taoiseach announced with great fanfare the RAPID programme, revitalising areas by planning, investment and development, to transfer resources to and develop "the 25 most deprived urban neighbourhoods in the State for special treatment, involving the front-loading of State investment for facilities and services to bring about a major improvement in the living standards of the residents in these areas over the next three years.". The impression created was that there were virtually unlimited resources to underpin the programme –€2 billion nationally was mooted – in the context of "the national development plan which will provide €15 billion to address social inclusion measures."

The Taoiseach told the press conference that "there is commitment at the highest level to see the situation of deprived areas turned around." The then Minister of State at the Department of Tourism, Sport and Recreation, Deputy Eoin Ryan, outlined that the RAPID programme would operate to deliver effectively to the target areas.

Up and down the country the deliberately chosen acronym RAPID was touted before the election as Fianna Fáil's commitment to the poor. It added another 20 areas so that now 45 areas would be transformed. Co-ordinators were established, committees set up, conferences convened, area implementation teams created and endless consultation embarked upon. The simple message was to come up with a good plan and money would be no object.

The local communities took the local Fianna Fáil candidates at their word. They set about their work and after much effort submitted their plans, but what has happened? Not one euro has been dispensed under RAPID. The Government is now furiously relabelling community projects that were on stream and are redesignating them RAPID. It is a cruel con-trick by Fianna Fáil perpetrated against the most disadvantaged communities in the State.

On 11 February I could not believe my ears when in Fettercairn in Tallaght I heard the Minister, Deputy Ó Cuív, at a meeting of project promoters under RAPID, effectively disown the programme. He told a dumbfounded audience that there is no money available to support the project. The Minister gave the vague impression that he had inherited this mess and that someone else was responsible for misleading people, that he was sorry but he was actually contemplating pulling the plug on the whole sorry saga. I have never seen anything like it. It was a performance that merited the all-time brass neck award for a Fianna Fáil Minister, and that is some accolade. This was the meanest of all the cuts as Fianna Fáil, safely re-elected, abandoned the poor.

All these projects are still out there, all this work has been put into them, but now the Government says it does not know where the money will come from. This is exactly what it has done in the new partnership deal. The community and voluntary sector has condemned the new partnership deal because there are no measures for social inclusion that were not already in the Government programme. Outstanding commitments under the PPF, such as those in respect of child benefit, have not been honoured. There are no additional resources for the national anti-poverty strategy. The new deal is substantially different because there are no specifics on social inclusion that were not already in the Government programme and no additional funding. The Taoiseach has told the community and voluntary sector, however, that if it walks away it will lose its access to senior civil servants and Government.

This stands out from all the broken promises made with such abandon in May – this promise to the most deprived areas in the State, areas calculatedly chosen by Fianna Fáil—

Éamon Ó Cuív

What about round three?

Mr. Rabbitte

—that then put together projects only to be told there is no funding. It is the most disgraceful betrayal of the most impoverished areas of the country and deprives Fianna Fáil of any pretence anymore of representing poor people.

Aengus Ó Snodaigh

The Minister asked about round three. We already know about it.

Éamon Ó Cuív

I am talking about the rural RAPID programme.

Aengus Ó Snodaigh

The CLÁR programme will probably be treated in exactly the same way. The community sector will be encouraged to put hours and hours of work into producing plans.

Éamon Ó Cuív

An bhfuil eolas ag an Teachta air?

Aengus Ó Snodaigh

Tá, mar thug an tAire féin an t-eolas dom. Tá sé mar an gcéanna le RAPID – níl aon chinnteacht maidir le airgead. There is no guarantee of funding for any of these programmes.

Éamon Ó Cuív

Taispeánann sin an t-eolas atá ag an Teachta.

Mr. Rabbitte

Is cac é sin.

Aengus Ó Snodaigh

That is exactly the problem with RAPID.

Mr. Rabbitte

Tá sé ag insint na fírinne.

Aengus Ó Snodaigh

Tá an ceart agam anseo. An fhadhb is mó leis na scéimeanna seo ar fad, RAPID go háirithe, ná go bhfuil an Rialtas ag tarraingt siar ón airgead atá de dhíth. It is not putting its money where its mouth is. Round three of RAPID will see rural areas being told that although they have spent thousands of euro and hundreds of hours preparing a programme, they must wait in the hope that economic prosperity might return. The last answer I got from the Minister on this question was that the 45 areas selected have been consistently targeted as areas of special need through various Government interventions over the past few years. Anybody living in those areas will not have noticed because they have not been getting anything more than the normal, very poor service. The areas I mentioned in my question have been deprived and neglected, with the highest unemployment figures, the greatest lack of skills and educational attainment and the greatest concentration of social problems. A glance at the list of areas will confirm that they correspond directly to those with the highest drug abuse and drug-related fatalities and the greatest need for programmes aimed at restoring some form of normality to those societies. They are also the areas of poorest service provision.

That was one of the issues which RAPID was supposed to address, with all services combined in one-stop shops and delivered promptly. However, that has not happened. On the contrary, everything seems to have been slowed down under RAPID, which focused community activists over a two year period on producing plans despite the fact that most of those plans were already available. In effect, they were re-inventing the wheel but they had no choice in the matter. A great pot of gold was dangled in front of them, subject to certain actions on their part. Those actions have been completed but the money has not been delivered and there is no indication that it will be.

Both the Minister and his colleague, an t-Aire Fiontar, Trádála agus Fostaíochta, should focus on the need for a co-ordinated action programme and perhaps transfer community employment schemes, jobs initiatives and the social economy into the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs. The vital community service projects for those disadvantaged areas are not being delivered by the Minister's colleague. In fact, she has eliminated those jobs and devastated entire communities which were dependent on funding from FÁS via her Department under the scheme which has now been abolished. The programmes which people had hoped to build in RAPID would depend on community employment schemes or something similar. That is no longer available. Community workers are tired and dispirited because they have been let down on this and every other occasion when they tried to put together a plan to resurrect communities and restore hope, self-confidence and self-esteem to those areas.

The money which was supposed to be provided has disappeared. If the Minister could now give a commitment that, within a month or two, he would direct that the money be front-loaded as quickly as possible, this debate would have achieved a great deal. However, I am not hopeful in that regard. Maybe there is need for a review but that should not have brought RAPID to a halt. Even though it has not even got off the ground yet, we hear of a review and evaluation.

Caithfidh an Rialtas, an t-Aire agus a chomhghleacaí an t-Aire Fiontair, Trádála agus Fostaíochta, geallúint a thabhairt go mbeidh an t-airgead seo ar fáil agus go dtarlóidh rudaí maidir le RAPID, RAPID 2 agus CLÁR i bhfad níos tapúla. Tá a fhios agam go bhfuil difríochtaí móra idir CLÁR agus RAPID agus is maith na difríochtaí sin. Tá súil agam go mbeidh an t-Aire in ann na tharrthála atá i gCLÁR a chur i bhfeidhm ar RAPID i gceann bliana nó dhó amach anseo ach ba chóir dó RAPID a thosnú i gceart ar an gcéad dul síos.

Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs (Éamon Ó Cuív)

Ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a ghabháil leis an mbeirt Teachta as ucht na ceiste seo a ardú tráthnóna agus deis a thabhairt dom léargas a fháil ar mo thuairimíocht faoin gclár seo. I thank both Deputies for raising the issue. I have the usual ministerial script but before, or perhaps instead of, reading it, I wish to outline my thinking on this matter. First, I should point out that there are three strands to RAPID, namely RAPID 1, RAPID 2 and CLÁR. The process being followed in RAPID 1 and 2 is very much that agreed with the social partners during the partnership talks. That process was put together by Government and the social partners because they each thought it was the way to proceed. However, when I became Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture and Food and was told I was to start the rural RAPID programme, I saw it as a cumbersome way of doing the job. I had long and rather difficult meetings with the social partners because I believed that if we followed the route of RAPID 1, we would, as the Deputy has rightly pointed out, simply end up with a lot of plans. There was a fundamental difficulty in getting all the agencies to re-prioritise. In all honesty, this problem should never have arisen in the first place, as Deputy Rabbitte will appreciate.

Mr. Rabbitte

The Minister has a brass neck. His Government was responsible for the problem.

Éamon Ó Cuív

It should not have arisen in the first place because when Deputy Rabbitte was in Government he should have front-loaded all the money into those areas. However, as in previous Governments, he did not succeed.

Mr. Rabbitte

The fault rests entirely with the Minister.

Éamon Ó Cuív

No. My point is that I am honest enough to admit to difficulties when they arise. We are all aware of the difficulty in getting the agencies concerned to re-prioritise.

Mr. Rabbitte

It was an election stunt on the part of the Government.

Éamon Ó Cuív

If I may continue, CLÁR approached the situation in a totally different way. CLÁR is part of the RAPID programme but its approach was not that of the social partners. However, it is fair comment that most politicians and people on the ground in the CLÁR areas see huge merit in CLÁR as a programme that has made a difference and a methodology which is effective. It is a measure of its success that it is the one programme for which I was under continuous pressure to have the boundaries extended. People will only make such demands if they consider a scheme beneficial on the ground. That pressure came from public representatives, particularly on the Opposition side, as well as from the people at large.

The idea of the RAPID programme was to re-prioritise towards the RAPID areas part of the €48 billion which is being spent and will be spent under the national development plan. Including stage 1 and stage 2, there are 45 such areas. The implementation process was that the co-ordinating role was given to my Department, supported by Area Development Management Ltd, generally known as ADM. ADM was to co-ordinate the efforts of each Department which, individually, was to re-prioritise in favour of RAPID areas. Deputy Rabbitte may say I am brass-necked. If it is being brass-necked to have the honesty to say at a meeting in Tallaght that a major development was going to happen anyhow rather than staking a political claim on a pretext of prioritisation, then I will continue being brass-necked. However, I prefer to regard that as integrity in not claiming credit for huge developments in those areas.

Mr. Rabbitte

People were expecting money from CLÁR.

Éamon Ó Cuív

If we are serious about the issue—

Mr. Rabbitte

I am deadly serious.

Éamon Ó Cuív

I will explain my position to the Deputy. I will repeat what I said in Tallaght. Having gone around to RAPID areas, I got a feeling from the people on the ground – the only people that matter to me – that they were not happy with its performance. That was before I came to a meeting in Blanchardstown. People involved in RAPID in Blanchardstown said it was the greatest thing since the sliced pan. I was obviously interested to find out why it was working in Blanchardstown, where some very big things have happened, and not in other areas.

As the Deputy rightly pointed out, the area action plans were drawn up. If there is a fault with them, it is that there were no guidelines. It was literally a case of any idea that came to mind. This has been a recent trend. The problem with that is that a huge number of actions are outlined. To give the Deputies a sense of the scale of the proposals involved, 1,000 different actions were proposed within the RAPID plans.

I am not trying to carry out a review, as Deputy Ó Snodaigh said. What I am trying to do is find a methodology which would bring success. Since the meeting in Tallaght, at which both Deputy Rabbitte and I were present, I decided that what we should do is look at the various elements of the plan. Some of them are much more appropriate to be dealt with at the new level which we have created at local authority level, that is, the county development board level, because it deals with elements within its ambit. Many of the elements had nothing to do with the national development plan, but I will not throw them out of the RAPID programme because there are issues of local importance, for example, cleaning the graffiti off walls and re-allocating community gardaí. These are not per se national development plan issues but they are important to the communities. What I am doing is setting up a mechanism so that those issues can be dealt with locally and we can concentrate at Government and Department level on the larger issues where decisions must be made.

I will assure Deputies that, just as in the case of CLÁR which I set up, I am deadly serious about getting results and the measure of results for me will be what people in the areas targeted say as to whether it has made a difference, not what the co-ordinators or anybody else says. I will give this my best shot. Although some movement has been evident on some aspects since the meeting in Tallaght, I would not continue with it if it was not going to deliver over the period of the Government for the people of these areas.

As regards my Department, there are a number of funds which we control and where we can achieve re-prioritisation because it is within our ambit. These include the young people's facilities and services fund, YPFSF, and the community development programme, CDP, and funding for local drugs task force, LDTF, projects.

In the case of the YPFSF, the national assessment committee, NAC, of the fund, which is chaired by my Department, is currently examining capital proposals submitted by the development groups under round two of the fund. With regard to services projects, the committee is awaiting completion of the external evaluation of the fund before seeking such proposals under round two. The first draft of the evaluator's report was received in mid-January 2003 and is being examined by the NAC at present. Proposals submitted under the RAPID plans will be considered in the context of decisions to be made under round two and in light of the overall funding position for 2003. I assure the Deputies that in any funds under my Department, proposals from RAPID areas will be given the priority they deserve and we in my Department will lead by example in this regard.

Similarly, with the community development support programme, there was no additional funding this year. However, in a large number of cases pre-development work has been under way. The full establishment of groups under community development projects in 2003 is subject to available resources, but again I want to make it absolutely clear that the RAPID areas will get priority in bringing forward these community development support projects.

In addition, a number of proposals from RAPID plans are being pursued through the LDTFs. In this case the position is simpler because many of the LDTF areas are nearly coterminous with the RAPID areas and therefore by definition they would be targeted. Again I will not claim that LDTF money is going to RAPID areas because the Deputies could take it, by definition, that is what would have happened anyway.

It is fair to say that this Department was founded in a situation where there were a lot of groups operating in the community sector. A huge number of them are doing incredible work on the ground, but there was a great disparity of methods applied. There were partnerships working in one direction and CDSPs in another. CDSPs received money directly from the Department and via ADM on a partnership basis. This has been a wasteful way of doing business. When I came into the Department it was the equivalent of having electricity cables going all over the place, with half of the power being lost in the transmission and not too much of the electricity getting to the end user. When I talk about rationalisation, I am talking about using the money we have in such a way that less of it is lost in bureaucracy and more on services for those in the target areas who need it.

I assure the Deputies – I note one of them has left, obviously interested not in the answer but just in hearing himself – that I am absolutely committed to making this programme work, from the very small actions which are so important to people in communities to the larger actions. I will measure success by the visible difference seen by those living in those communities.

I believe I was right to see weaknesses in the processes followed to date and, rather than pretend that everything was rosy in the garden, to say so. At the beginning of the process the Government and the social partners probably did not realise difficulties would arise in getting re-prioritisation. Learning from my experience in CLÁR, I set about making this programme work. If admitting faults and doing something about them is wrong in politics, then we have a very funny view of politics.

The Dáil adjourned at 5.40 p.m. until 2.30 p.m. on Tuesday, 11 March 2003.