The Technical Group Members who are sharing time are Deputies Joan Collins, Seamus Healy, Thomas Pringle and Tommy Broughan.
Local and Community Development Programmes: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members]
The following motion was moved by Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív on Wednesday, 4 June 2014:
That Dáil Éireann:
notes:
— the central role local development companies play in providing local services across Ireland, including the delivery of the Leader programme and social inclusion programmes;
— that local integrated development companies also provide supports across a wide range of areas such as rural transport, child care, rural recreation and youth development and administer schemes such as the rural social scheme and the Tús scheme;
— that approximately 1,900 people are directly employed in the sector, thousands of positions are supported by the schemes involved and some €50 million is due to be spent on the programmes in 2014; and
— that local and community development programmes have a central part in developing and supporting local enterprise and sustaining jobs;
further notes the Government’s plans to align local and community development programmes within local authorities from 1 July with new programmes due to begin in 2015;
condemns the:
— Government’s cynical failure to engage in real consultation with the integrated community companies; and
— erosion of local democratic structures in the Government’s local government reform; and
calls on the Government to:
— fully review the approach to the delivery of community services and programmes by these companies;
— protect funding for Leader programmes through 50:50 co-financing;
— ensure companies that are tendering for Leader funding under the new local authority structure would be obliged to have partnership structures on their boards and their headquarters in the area of the local authority in question to ensure community ethos and local representation are at the heart of the delivery of programmes into the future; and
— ensure these companies are used as a one-stop-shop to deliver rural services, including rural transport and community schemes, and continue to play a central part in sustaining the fabric of communities across Ireland.
Debate resumed on amendment No. 1:
To delete all words after "Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following:
" - welcomes the overarching vision of Putting People First - Action Programme for Effective Local Government of a local government system leading economic, social and community development, delivering efficient and good value services, and representing citizens and local communities effectively and accountably;
- notes that following the publication in Putting People First of recommendations for enhanced alignment between local government and local development an alignment working group, including representatives of the Irish Local Development Network, was established to assist and advise on implementation;
- welcomes the structure of the local community development committees being established under the reform programme, which will facilitate full and comprehensive representation of all actors, including community interests, and whose membership will be decided in a fully transparent, representative and democratic way;
- recognises the important role of local development companies as part of these reformed arrangements, including continued implementation roles in programmes and the provision of supports across a range of areas;
- welcomes the Government’s decision to allocate 7% of the rural development programme, RDP, to the Leader element, 2% over the minimum required by the relevant EU regulation, resulting in an overall programme complement of €235 million for the 2014-2020 period; this, coupled with delivery of two Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine artisan food schemes using the Leader approach, results in a full Leader complement for the 2014-2020 period of some €250 million;
- notes that any entity that expresses an interest in delivering a RDP local development strategy using the Leader approach must meet the requirements of the EU regulatory framework, including that the entity should be a partnership of public and private local socio-economic interests where no single interest group represents more than 49% of the voting rights at decision making level;
- recognises that local and community development programmes continue to play an important part in national social and economic recovery, including in the provision of valuable social services, direct and indirect supports for enterprise development, and employment creation; and
- reaffirms the continued partnership between community representatives, local authorities, local development bodies and statutory partners in ensuring effective co-ordination and targeting of services and avoidance of overlap and duplication, placing services before structures.”
(Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government)
It is very important to put on record that local development companies are non-profit organisations at the moment. They deliver programmes to tackle poverty and social exclusion, provide assistance for enterprise creation, support the long-term unemployed, and offer education and child support in partnership with Departments and agencies. The LDCs have 20 years' experience in implementing the programmes. They have employed 1,900 staff. The Government must be answerable on its role in dismantling the system and on the provision of badly needed social supports in communities.
I wish to challenge the Government on two issues. The first relates to the EU procurement directive which will now apply to LDCs and the fact they will now be put out to tender to for-profit organisations for the provision of important social services. The austerity of the past six years has taken €30 billion out of the economy and that is having a huge impact on people's lives and their communities. I question the shift in the operation of the LDCs by the Government. I question the opposition of many Labour Party Deputies to the move as they expressed support for workers in LDCs. It is disgraceful that the Government is supporting the tendering of public services to the for-profit sector. That should not happen. I would have presumed the measure would have been totally opposed by the Labour Party.
The Minister responded in yesterday's debate to accusations of a lack of consultation. He said: "Any suggestion that I or my Department have not engaged in consultation simply does not stand up to scrutiny." I challenge that. SIPTU has said there were no serious, tangible discussions, debate or consultation with the SIPTU workers involved. One meeting took place in September and from then on the workers were not involved in a consultation process. Many Labour Party Deputies attended the meetings with workers and said there should be no lock-out of workers from consultation, but that is what happened. The workers were locked out and there was no serious consultation with them. The Minister should not be allowed to say otherwise.
If it is not broken, why fix it, is a generally accepted common sense principle which particularly applies to local development companies which have been doing Trojan work over the years. They have played a central role in developing and supporting local enterprises while sustaining jobs. They have provided local services across the country, including social inclusion programmes, while directly employing 2,000 people and supporting thousands of ancillary positions through schemes. In 2014, local development companies are expected to spend up to €50 million. There is no need whatever to change a successful system that works well.
We should also extend these companies' remit into the area of RAPID funding, which the Government abolished, for disadvantaged communities which did not benefit from the so-called Celtic tiger years such as Carrick-on-Suir, Tipperary town and significant parts of Clonmel. RAPID funding for these areas has effectively been abolished. It should be put back in place and operated through the local development companies. Such funding allowed for community programmes, supports for youth services and programmes and community policing to be put in place in disadvantaged areas.
The changes proposed to the delivery of local development companies will be detrimental to social inclusion and local development. I particularly object to the tendering of these services to for-profit organisations. This is an area that should be exclusively operated through local community organisations.
I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate on local development companies. I know from talking to the Donegal local community development companies that they were very unsatisfied with the so-called consultation that took place with the Department and the Minister in advance of this alignment being announced. They were practically presented with a done deal and told by the Minister this is what would happen with no consultation at all. It smacks of arrogance from the Government to go ahead with these decisions that will affect 1,900 workers throughout the country and the delivery of local community development programmes. Not having any consultation makes a mockery of the whole system.
A local authority being responsible for local development is a good principle if it is done properly and correctly. When the local development companies were established over 20 years ago, they should have been delivered through the local authorities which would have made them more responsive to the needs of local communities rather than having duplication. The Minister’s plan is that local authorities will not deliver local community development programmes. Instead, local authorities will just be putting out to tender the delivery of community development in their administrative areas to organisations that will be delivering the programme on a profit basis. There is no doubt the Government will go ahead with this realignment. However, it must ensure that only non-profit, locally based companies can apply for the tenders. This is the only way we can preserve the ethos of the local development companies which have so far not been operating for profit while looking to the benefit of the communities they serve rather than lining the pockets of the owners of those companies.
I thank the Technical Group for giving me a few minutes to speak on this motion and I thank Fianna Fáil for putting it forward.
There have been long discussions about so-called alignment between local development companies and local government. However, there has always been a grave concern about this area. Why were these local entrepreneurial companies established in the first place? They were established because local government just did not deliver. That was certainly my experience in the north side of Dublin when ordinary volunteers created bodies like the Northside Community Law Centre, the Northside Centre for the Unemployed and, in my own case, when Pat Daly and I founded the Coolock Development Council. We saw there was a significant necessity for an entrepreneurial culture to be fostered in our community to help people lift themselves up by their bootstraps and create jobs for themselves, particularly when this function was not carried out by national or local government. Accordingly, I strongly share the reservations listed in the motion.
In July 2013, Smith Everett & Associates produced a useful analysis for the Irish Local Development Network which showed, for example, that between 2010 and 2012, LDCs provided a net gain for the Exchequer of more than €311 million, €7.8 million per company. LDCs have provided a range of services besides the enterprise function and job creation such as local transport initiatives, local security companies, child care and youth facilities. Up to 23,828 people were employed by LDCs in 2012, making it an important part of local development.
I share the concerns expressed in this debate about for-profit, private sector companies in direct competition with LDCs which have emerged from local initiatives. The trade union movement, particularly the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and Peter Cassells, played a fundamental role in the late 1980s and early 1990s in responding to people like me who were on the ground involved in local development companies and who came forward with the process of creating Leader and other partnership programmes. We need to tread carefully in this area.
I call Deputy Arthur Spring who is sharing time with Deputies Anthony Lawlor, Paul Connaughton, Michelle Mulherin, Seán Kyne and James Bannon.
I welcome this Fianna Fáil motion. I have been a director of the North and East Kerry Leader Partnership in the past. At the height of my community activity, I was on the board of more than 30 organisations, but I have always said the Leader partnership was the best organisation in which I was involved for three reasons, namely, unity, community and funding. It had the capacity to achieve in areas where local authorities could not. There is an inverse relationship between responsibility and having access to funding to getting projects completed. Members find it frustrating that we do not have much funding as councillors. Councillors were left with less funding than people who were on local authority organisations.
My main concern is for the services provided by local development companies and the positioning of staff in the event tendering takes place. I understand this is an EU requirement in providing some of the rural development funds.
Deputy Thomas Pringle made a very valid point when he stated in the event that tendering must take place, why not limit it to just not-for-profit organisations? The service provided is so community based and necessary to communities that it is better people do it because they care about their community rather than to line their pockets also. I acknowledge there is duplication in the LDCs at present. I was on the county enterprise board and many people approached us seeking information on accessing funding. We suggested that in the event that they did not get funding from the county enterprise board, they should try the north and east Kerry partnership companies. Both organisations were doing much the same thing. A greater and more transparent level of responsibility was given to the county enterprise board but neither organisation was doing anything wrong so why would one have duplication? I can see the method in trying to consolidate these issues.
There is concern that local authorities would get their hands on this. I have made representations to the Minister, Deputy Hogan, on a number of occasions that if local authority members and management decide that spending this funding is at their discretion, we will lose the initiative established when the Labour Party was in government 20 years ago. It is imperative to keep the community base. There should be involvement with local authorities but the funding needs to be completely separate from what local authorities have for projects.
The GoKerry tourism initiative was started in Tralee with a view to developing it throughout the county and the first place we could access funding for stimulus and moving forward was the local partnership company. At the same time the local authority was not in a position to provide any funding or to endorse it because it saw it as doing something which a State agency, Bord Fáilte, was doing at the time. There are contradictions in what is being done at present. I would prefer to see the funding isolated as much as possible.
We must also consider best practice. The European Union Committee of the Regions has stated that Ireland has a very good LDC system at present. The UK implemented a tendering process and I have met people involved in trying to correct it afterwards. They felt the community was ripped out when it became a private tendering process. I urge local authorities and the Department to ensure as much as possible that the local community is at the heart of it at all times and that the funds are isolated.
A total of 1,700 people are directly and indirectly employed in this and they fear for their jobs. The tendering process must be fair and transparent but it can be done in a way which recognises what is being achieved at present, and the best people to meet these requirements are the existing organisations. It is incumbent that funding is provided in a transparent way and the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government has a hands-on role in this regard. From what I know, it has been prescribed that the people elected from local authorities to these organisations will receive no funding, which is welcome. At least it will be community based and will not be for the profit of local authorities and their members.
This is a good issue to discuss and I am delighted to have had an opportunity to contribute to the debate.
I welcome the opportunity to speak on this topic. Deputy Ó Fearghaíl is from the same constituency as me, where we have had a chequered history with Leader partnerships. Years back, there were three companies in Kildare, and when three companies are putting out the same pot, there are three sets of administration. Most of the money ended up going on administration. They amalgamated but the sad part about this amalgamation was that the three CEOs of the three individual companies all became part and parcel of the new amalgamation and we had another issue with regard to administration costs. I still have an issue with administration costs because up to 20% of the €250 million being allocated can be spent on administration costs. If we are really speaking about where funding should be going in communities, we should examine this area because it means €50 million is automatically taken out of the initial €250 million to be spent on administrative costs and not allocated to communities. I have reservations about this; the fund has been established to assist communities but one fifth of it will be spent on administration costs, which somewhat defeats the purpose.
I very much welcome the fact that it is being brought under the auspices of the local authorities. This gives an opportunity for the public to have better scrutiny. Who has ever read in the newspapers about any Leader company meetings or reports? Journalists generally report on local authority activities so there is a better opportunity for oversight. I welcome the fact that the oversight body which will look after it has a wide variety of groups involved, not only community groups, but also educational groups, local authority management and elected members.
There is a huge delay between a project being initiated and getting a grant and this puts off groups proposing projects. I welcome the fact they will all be under the one body, so assistance can be given to community groups not only with applying for funding, but also with planning permission and any environmental issues which involves dealing with the local authority. This is a positive. I would welcome a unified system throughout the country whereby the processes are similar for community groups applying for projects in various areas. We are still waiting for some projects, which applied and were passed by boards in May or June 2013, to be approved by the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government. This is unacceptable. If a project is worthy of funding, then whatever assistance can be given by whoever gets the tender should be speeded up as quickly as possible.
There is also a need for checks and balances. We see ridiculous projects being allocated huge amounts of money which have no bearing on why the overall scheme was established. I have seen it in County Kildare. There does not seem to be any logic and we need more checks and balances. I hope the overarching body in the local authorities will have a major say in this.
I welcome this measure because amalgamation within local authorities will assist community groups. Those applying for tenders will more than likely have experience and I agree such experience should be taken on board. It is important the projects are processed as quickly as possible.
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on the motion. Putting People First, the action programme for effective local government, aims to institute a system of local government which will drive economic, social and community development, while at the same time representing value for money and representing citizens fairly. Key changes envisioned include the establishment of local community development committees and a new role for local development companies as part of these revised arrangements.
With €250 million to be spent between now and 2020, it is imperative that the new structures are fit for purpose and achieve the required results for local communities. I welcome the artisan food scheme which will be operated by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, but the vast bulk of the expenditure, €235 million of the €250 million, will be spent under the Leader element of the programme.
The local community development programmes have been at the heart of the delivery of social and economic recovery programmes, including innovative and invaluable social services, as well as supports for enterprise and job creation. This programme will continue to be delivered by a partnership between community representatives, local authorities, local development bodies and State agencies.
Local government has been central in delivering local community development programmes. However, in the current economic climate, it is imperative that each arm of Government is as streamlined and effective as possible. Recent changes in local government structures saw the number of councillors in the country reduced from slightly more than 1,600 to slightly fewer than 950 and the number of local authorities from 114 to 31. Similarly, in the past five years, the number of partnership and Leader companies has reduced from almost 100 to 50. Ongoing evaluations of the various programmes such as the local development social inclusion programme and the community development programme resulted in changes that aimed to reduce overhead costs while maximising money available for front-line delivery.
I understand that the past two years have been times of great uncertainty in partnership companies across the State. The four-year local community development programme came to an end in December 2013 and a one-year transitional extension was put in place until the new social inclusion programme gets under way in 2015. However, the uncertainty that surrounded the future of the local community development programme and the transitional phase until the social inclusion programme gets under way has caused huge difficulties for local communities seeking to get projects completed under the old plan. In County Galway, community groups, such as those in Barnadearg and Ballyglunin, found it almost impossible to get information on the prospects of their projects receiving funding and still are experiencing significant difficulties in accessing information about their applications. I believe the experience of community groups in the past two years will put off many groups from applying for funding in future and there is a real danger that the communities most in need of help, sometimes also those with least resources at their disposal, will lose out in terms of funding, while the larger community groups, now established on a semi-professional footing, will be better placed to find their way through the maze of bureaucracy that faces groups seeking funding. I am sure these issues will be discussed fully in the new public participation networks but there is a danger that these will turn into talking shops for the most voluble and visible community groups and that the voice of very small communities will be lost in the din.
In my experience, lack of communication with groups who have made applications for funding has been a real problem and a cause of great anxiety for community groups fearful that if their project is not completed by the year end, it may not fit the parameters of the new programme and they could be left in a very difficult position with a half-finished project and little prospect of further funding. The cumbersome nature of the system is another frustration for local groups, especially the delay between the time the group incurs the expenditure and receives payment. I am aware of instances in which small community groups were presented with a checklist of more that 120 items before a grant could be paid. While I understand the need to ensure value for money in the delivery of grants, there is a tipping point beyond which it becomes too difficult for a small community group to meet the many and varied requirements of the local partnership company in accessing grants.
I believe the vision of Putting People First is commendable but Members must ensure that those words are reflected in the everyday operations of the various programmes and that local communities, not bureaucratic systems, are paramount in the local development systems.
First, I welcome the €250 million that has been provided under the Leader element of the rural development programme between 2014 and 2020. This Leader programme will have a significant impact on and provide potential benefit to the region I serve, County Mayo, as well as for the west and for rural areas in particular. As the money is there, it is a question of it being used and applied in the right way in order to derive the maximum return therefrom. The Commission for the Economic Development of Rural Areas chaired by Pat Spillane issued its report a number of weeks ago. While it set out a stark picture regarding the challenges facing rural Ireland, it also set out, very hopefully, means and methods that might be tried to address the decline of rural Ireland and that might enable the creation now of a sustainable future for the peoples of rural Ireland. It also set out that this is an element of our country, including these people and this lifestyle, that we cherish. The Leader programme can be one strand used to ensure a sustainable future for rural Ireland and I welcome this. It is evident in the areas of economic and social development in rural areas such as tourism. In my experience, however, it is about building up communities, making sure they are viable and that such communities frequently act together in concert to deliver a project or an activity in their area and this funding allows them to do that. While preparatory work on the new Leader programme is well under way, I acknowledge the significant reduction in funding available in this round of Leader funding will pose its own challenges, adjustments and changes, which are required to draw up a programme. This will mean, first and foremost, the maximum benefit for the front-line services that the Leader programme is required to deliver for the people living in rural areas and for economic development in those areas.
As this plan is fleshed out and as the preparatory work formalises further, it must examine the essence of what worked in Leader. I am referring here to local knowledge and staff in Leader companies who were prepared to visit and work with communities that were operating on a voluntary basis, to animate them, get them interested and see the results on the ground. One major challenge for the local authority in respect of alignment is that it too must go to the same extremes or ends to engage with those communities. However, it is welcome that by bringing in the local authority, one in effect is introducing the democratically-elected representatives, coupled with community input, into the decision-making process. There is potential there and it would be a shame not to get it right and for the skills and experience that have been amassed, as well as those links deep into the community, not to be preserved as the form of the delivery of the Leader programme changes.
More particularly, in line with references made by previous speakers, I refer to delays in the payment of Leader grants. I ask the Minister, Deputy Hogan, to refer in particular to the Mayo North East Leader Partnership Company. I have made scores of representations on behalf of individuals, community organisations and businesses that are trying to get funds which, they believe, have been sanctioned. On the one hand, they are being told by the company that the delay is with the Department while on the other hand, the Department has told them it is the responsibility of the company. It is like ping-pong and some of this has been going on since the company was placed under the supervision of the Department in February 2013. I still cannot get answers and would like the Minister to take a particular interest in this regard. There are businesses that are out on a limb and which need that funding to grow their business. This is what the money is for and the position is highly unsatisfactory. Issues such as this and this blockage in particular must be addressed.
I welcome this debate on the future of the Leader programme. In common with many former members of local authorities, I have served on the board of a number of Leader companies, including the Galway Rural Development Company and Forum Connemara. My experience of both companies but particularly Forum Connemara, on the board of which I served latterly, was that they were exceptional companies, doing great work with great staff and which were involved in the community approach from the bottom up. They involved themselves in support, in identifying and promoting projects and I certainly hope this will continue, whatever reform takes place.
I welcome the allocation of 7% of the rural development programme to Leader, which is 2% over the minimum. This will allow €235 million to be spent in the period up to 2020. In addition, two schemes will be funded by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, which will bring total expenditure to €250 million. As I stated, the Leader companies have provided great support to projects but I can perceive a role for the local authorities in trying to ensure better value for money and that more money will be available for the projects themselves, rather than on their administration.
Many details remain to be ironed out on the role of the SECs and the future and still undecided role of elected members who, like me, used to serve on the board of Leader companies and whether they will have an oversight role. In their view, they have been elected and as such have a greater insight into the needs of their communities. Will the role of elected members be confined to an audit role? I am interested to know the final details which will be ironed out in the negotiations with the ILD and the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government.
I refer to issues in the past in my area of Connemara with Meitheal Forbartha na Gaeltachta which went into liquidation. Its role was taken over by Comhar na nOileán which is doing a good job. There was an unfortunate time lag with regard to the provision of funding in the Gaeltacht area. The Department and the Minister is anxious that all funding is expended but, unfortunately, in my view, there was an over-redistribution of funds from the Gaeltacht areas to other areas in the country which has not been addressed. I have identified to the Minister this issue of a funding shortfall in the Gaeltacht area which, in my view, needs to be investigated. I appreciate what happened was outside the control of the Minister and the Department but the time lag was unfortunate and by the time Comhar na nOileán was up and running, the scheme was put into abeyance pending the review. Unfortunately, the allocations were redistributed. Other speakers have mentioned that there should be an allocation over and above the 100% allocation to ensure that those projects which fall by the wayside will have sufficient funding to spend.
Another issue of concern raised at meetings is that the Leader companies are private companies which cannot be scrapped by the Minister. They carry out a range of services under the auspices of the HSE and the Department of Social Protection, such as meals on wheels and rural social schemes, and these will not be affected by any changes enacted by the realignment. This is an important point which is not widely publicised and concerns about the realignment are being expressed by elderly people and participants in the schemes.
Letterfrack is more than one hour away from County Buildings in Galway, the same distance as Dublin to Dundalk or to Gorey, and it would not happen in that case. There is a concern that the local structure, the bottom-up approach which has served Connemara and the Letterfrack area well, needs to be retained.
The islands have been served by Comhar na nOileán. Those who live on the islands believe they have more in common with other islands than with the people living on the mainland. For example, the Aran islands and Inishbofin would have more in common with each other than with Connemara. Their existing structures should be maintained and they should be able to engage at board level for the good of all the islands.
This Government is reforming the delivery of our local and community development agenda, a process that has been greatly needed for a number of years. We had a stale system and now we need a more joined-up approach to the delivery of supports and services to local communities in the context of reducing resources. Over the years and particularly since we joined the EU, rural Ireland's farms, villages and towns have increasingly lost autonomy. The face-to-face human interaction is nearly gone with the co-ordinates of community nearly a thing of the past. A wide range of factors have caused the diminishing of local communities, such as the ban on turf cutting. Post offices, police stations, small schools and many other central aspects of vibrant local life are being centralised, with even water services being centralised under Irish Water.
At the root of the profound malaise in Irish society is, as the first director of the Institute of Public Administration, the late Tom Barrington, identified back in 1992, the "civic deficit" in Ireland, which involves the leaching away of people power in its transfer to the power hoarders of central government. The civic deficit is not a single thing; it is the accumulation of the deficits and liabilities over the assets in our civic culture. The civic culture contains in itself a number of intertwining subcultures, the civic, the democratic, the institutional and the moral. At the root of this civic deficit is our very impoverished view of what it means to be an Irish citizen. It is, therefore, a very challenging task to analyse and combat the causes of the malaise in Irish local communities and in our bounded places, those places in which we feel known and know, where we experience connection and draw nourishment, where we feel at home and from which we have something to offer the wider world because the universal truths concerning humankind are to be discovered in the local and the parochial.
In this task, Leader boards and Leader funding are vitally important and relevant. Last April, the Taoiseach launched a new report entitled, Energising Ireland's Rural Economy, by the Commission for the Economic Development of Rural Areas. The commission is chaired by Mr. Pat Spillane and was established in 2012 to make recommendations on ways to revive rural Ireland. It showed that Irish towns and villages and their rural hinterlands have never before been under such threat. We need debate and action for rural Ireland which needs to look at itself and to see what it can do to stem the tide of decline. In rural towns and villages 100 Garda stations, 200 banks, 100 schools and 1,300 pubs have closed. In addition to these closures, emigration and unemployment have contributed much to rural decline with organisations like the GAA being badly affected.
We are on the cusp of a new digital era and we are strategically placed from a geographic, infrastructural and knowledge perspective to herald the dawn of the next phase of Ireland's economic growth. If we do not take urgent action, such as the appointment of a Minister for rural affairs, a two-tier nation is developing in Ireland where young vibrant cities sit uneasily beside ageing rural communities increasingly reliant on State supports to survive. We need to confront very realistically the factors influencing rural decline today. We know about the high number of suicides in rural areas which are caused by rural isolation. All those issues and many more need to be addressed by the Government. I hope that when the Taoiseach is reshuffling his Cabinet he will see fit to appoint-----
Has Deputy Bannon sent in his CV?
-----a Minister with an interest in rural affairs. The Taoiseach is a rural Taoiseach and we should not take our eye off the ball because rural Ireland is in serious decline and action needs to be taken urgently to rectify this situation. We all hear those stories. We have seen the dreadful situation across the country whereby local government was reformed. All the least populated counties across the western seaboard lost a great number of public representatives. County Longford has had a council since the foundation of the State, with 21 members plus nine town councillors, but this has been reduced to 18. The same applies in Westmeath, Roscommon, Leitrim and elsewhere. In the interests of rural Ireland we cannot allow this situation to continue.
I agree with Deputy Bannon that the so-called reform of local government has been a disaster for rural areas. The number of councillors in County Cavan has been reduced from 25 to 18, leaving the county with the same number of councillors as other counties with less than half its population. The Government's decision to abolish town councils was also disgraceful. Moreover, the number of councillors representing less populated areas has declined, leaving large rural areas without any public representative, whether from a political party or an independent.
The core community partnership ethos of community development companies in providing Leader companies must be maintained. Local community development companies have played an important role in supporting local enterprise and providing services nationwide. Government decisions are leading to the dismantling of local decision making in the statutory and community sectors.
Local development companies have been in place for upwards of 20 years. Their origins lie in the original 12 employment partnerships, the pilot areas for the first Leader programme, integrated resource development, IRD, groups and the subsequent extension of these programmes in the period from 1994 to 1999. Subsequent restructuring processes resulted in a reduction in the number of companies through amalgamations and the integration of the former community development programme into this structure. This was a welcome development as the Leader programme evolved.
In all of that time, the local development companies have continued to provide a range of valuable services to their local communities, whether in the rural context through the delivery of the Leader programme, which has been successfully rolled out throughout rural areas by the local development companies, or in the local and community development programme, which targets disadvantage wherever it is found and has, particularly in this round, focused its response on the unemployed and people on low incomes generally.
Local development companies also provide a range of services to the Department of Social Protection, focusing on those who are hardest to reach and, by definition, in most need of assistance. The Tús initiative works with unemployed people in all areas of the State, providing them with valuable employment and skills retention opportunities, while enabling them to undertake worthwhile work in local communities. Up to 7,500 people are engaged in this activity at any time.
The local development companies contribute to local economies in many different ways, for example, through enterprise and other development work via the Leader programme, which provides grant aid for bottom up development initiatives in the community and business sectors of the local economy. This is enhanced through the local and community development programme which promotes learning, training, job-seeking skills and supports unemployed people to become self-employed. Last year alone in my county, Breffni Integrated Limited recorded 132 fully completed business start-ups, which were fully established and registered tax compliant businesses with research and written business plans. Local development companies are also significant local employers, providing employment to close to 2,000 people in the sector nationally in addition to those participating in employment schemes. In County Cavan, for instance, almost 300 people are employed under the auspices of Breffni Integrated Limited.
Despite embracing the alignment process, local development companies have been frustrated by the lack of real engagement or progress made during their participation. I recall a meeting with representatives of the Monaghan and Cavan integrated development groups last August, at which they expressed serious frustration at the lack of consultation by the Minister and Department in the new alignment process. Local development companies have significant concerns about the process. It appears, for example, that it is not necessary under European Union regulations due to the nature of the work concerned regarding tendering. Furthermore, recently supplied information indicates that each county is to be treated as one lot for tendering purposes, despite some local development companies in larger urban and rural counties covering only part of their respective counties. Notwithstanding extensive and ongoing participation at national level and the processes in place to progress the alignment process, the local development companies have not been able to establish the role intended for them in Leader programme delivery in the period from 2015 onwards. The position of the local development companies remains that they are the local action groups.
It is important to compliment all those who have served on local development companies since their establishment in the 1990s. The companies are managed by voluntary boards, which have come together at the behest of the Government to deliver a range of programmes. They have standard memorandums and articles of association, which have been prescribed by government and can only be changed with the prior approval of the Minister. It is important to maintain the continuity and successful structures of programmes that have been shown to work. I refer, in particular, to the Cavan-Monaghan Leader programme and the Monaghan and Breffni integrated companies.
I thank Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív for tabling the motion and making a number of proposals in his contribution yesterday. Local development companies have played a critical role in supporting local enterprise and providing services in communities nationwide, particularly in rural areas. Many people in rural areas are concerned about the practice of placing certain programmes within the remit of local authorities and contracting out other programmes. The Dáil must defend the core community partnership ethos of the local development companies.
When Deputies raise with the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government issues related to rural social schemes, the Tús scheme or community employment schemes, they receive a standard reply to the effect that the matter raised is one for the Minister for Social Protection. These schemes form part of a core group that comes within a single umbrella. Various communities have organised the schemes in such a way as to ensure they deliver significant benefits in the locality. The one-size-fits-all approach will not work in large counties such as Cork, Galway, Donegal and Mayo. Moreover, Gaeltacht areas and island communities present particular challenges.
The Great Western Greenway is a good example of a successful project that has been developed by communities which have worked together. The greenway is used by thousands of people every year and those involved are looking forward to the summer season. Communities in County Galway are considering making applications for funding for new greenways which offer great potential and scope for development. Community centres are also being provided in rural areas. In March last, the Tánaiste opened a new community centre in my parish of Caltra for which €500,000 had been allocated by the Galway Rural Development Company. These are examples of positive developments in rural areas that face many difficulties. As many of us heard during the recent elections, there has been a downturn in economic activity. Rural development companies have greatly helped to address this problem.
On the issue of alternative sources of funding, I approached the Arts Council seeking funding for various projects. Although restricted in terms of the types of projects it can fund, the Arts Council provided welcome assistance to various arts groups in Galway city. However, it did not provide any funding for various festivals held in smaller towns in County Galway. I am sure the same applies in other areas.
It is instructive that when Deputy Éamon Ó Cuiv was Minister for Rural, Community and Gaeltacht Affairs, he provided additional funding for the CLÁR and RAPID programmes. The level of flexibility that applied to this funding reassured people. Under a special strategy, towns such as Tuam were designated hubs and health, education and transport services benefited. Communities that bought into this approach are now worried about the funding being allocated to hubs.
Sport in rural areas has benefited greatly from funding under the various programmes.
This weekend the senior football championship starts off in Galway, with ten games over Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Twenty teams, through their voluntary input, will be putting their best players forward, and I would say every one of those clubs has got help through the community employment schemes, the rural social schemes, the Tús schemes and job initiative schemes. That is the kind of assistance that I like to see happening. It is happening for a co-operative mart that might need a road into its premises. It is happening for projects, such as, hopefully, "The Quiet Man" project in Ballyglunin where a railway station and a theatre is being provided, and in Barnaderg where a community fighting for its post office also has an ambitious project in under the rural development programme. That is the way to go.
It is frustrating to hear Leader companies have not enough funding, even at the start of the year, where they are told that they will be losing funding. I wonder, if something is working well, why should the Minister change it.
I cannot agree that we should have development companies in competition with each other. There are great volunteers in all of these organisations. There should be more progress made by these companies. If they were told how their applications are progressing, it would help greatly.
I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate. Like others, I thank Deputy Ó Cuív for his foresight in bringing to the floor of this House the concerns of many communities and enterprises across the country and in providing an opportunity to put the case to the Minister, Deputy Hogan, and the Government that at this late stage it is not too late to pull back, turn around and come forward with a different proposal. It is clear that the vast majority of those involved in the distribution of Leader funds and those who receive them believe what the Minister is doing is wrong and it is not too late to change. It is not broken and I cannot understand why the Minister is trying to fix a system that has worked exceptionally well.
I, too, reject the approach that the Minister or the Department has taken in trying to undermine the Leader companies by publishing their expenses and salaries in a way to somehow suggest that the administrative costs are out of kilter with the work that is being done.
We did not publish them.
That press release and briefing failed to take cognisance of the huge knock-on effect of those who work in the administration of these companies, their efforts and their work in bringing volunteers together. If one took the entire sum of the activity of the paid and the voluntary together, it would be minuscule by comparison to the way in which other entities of State operate based on output and return. It was a low point by the Government in an effort to undermine the work that was done to put it down to cost and present some of the figures without really recognising the immense amount of work that is done.
I am aware at first hand of the work that the Clare Local Development Company does and the voluntary effort that is put in by so many and I can tell the Minister without fear of contradiction that the costs are minuscule by comparison to the voluntary effort that is energised as a result of these professionals working in their community. In County Clare alone, in the past five years 722 enterprises have been supported, 517 jobs have been created, 1,657 persons have been trained and 119 communities have been supported. That is a significant body of vitally important work that cannot be done by any other State organisation.
Deputy Bannon makes an impassioned plea to the Taoiseach, who is a rural man and needs to recognise that rural communities need support. Deputy Bannon is correct; they do. Step by step, rural communities are being eroded by the policies being implemented by the Government. If Deputy Bannon is true to his word and true to what he stated here today, which will be for transmission to his local community, he should have the confidence of his conviction, walk through the lobbies with us today and send a message to the Minister and the Taoiseach that he is not prepared to see his community isolated in the way that will result from this decision. Then Deputy Bannon will be standing up for his community. Then his words will not be hollow. They will not be meaningless. However, if Deputy Bannon expects to be reported on local radio or in his local newspaper tomorrow as having made a great stand for his local community and he still votes the Government amendment through, that is farcical.
Deputy Dooley used do that as well.
People will consider Deputy Bannon to be some kind of a fool if he does that, and he is not. He is a bright and intelligent man. His community is bright and intelligent and it will respect him if he supports our effort to reject a proposal that goes too far.
The alignment process is all fine on paper but the fact is that the Minister will lose the voluntary input. The Minister should point out to me where else local authorities are involved in community activity where they have all that voluntary support. He knows it does not happen. It will not happen and it will be eroded here.
The Minister need only look to his own councillors, and councillors across the country. In the county I know best, the Fine Gael, Labour, Independent and Fianna Fáil councillors who were there at the time all rejected out of hand these proposals and they voted against them in their own chamber. That sends a strong message. It is unusual for politicians to state that they do not want the power. Quite the contrary, if they thought that they could do it better, they would have grabbed it and they would have got involved in it. However, they see that it would remove the voluntary effort and it would ultimately lead to a reduction in the service and an erosion of the good work that is being done.
Councillors and those involved in the communities believe that, ultimately, the Leader funding will find its way into the general Local Government Fund and Leader funding will be used for services that are already being provided. It is difficult to convince them otherwise. They paid a property tax this year.
Deputy Dooley would tell them that anyway.
The Minister does not have a whole lot of standing here.
I have.
He told them, in regard to the collection of a property tax,-----
I clarified that last night.
If I could conclude on this, as the Minister will be aware, the property tax this year was collected on a false premise. It was collected on the basis that it was going to provide services to local communities - they talked about street lights, footpaths and green areas - and the entirety of the tax was used to establish Irish Water. Deputy Hogan's Department has history on this and, unfortunately, it is difficult to convince people that there is not the same smash-and-grab approach here to smash what is working and grab the funding used to fund other services.
I am disappointed in the Minister. I am very disappointed in Deputy Bannon if he is not prepared to support us on this.
Deputy Dooley should have listened to Deputy Ó Cuív, who was very constructive.
I understand Deputy Kirk is sharing time with Deputy Troy.
I am glad of the opportunity to contribute to this most important debate. I thank my party's agriculture spokesman, An Teachta Ó Cuív, for putting down the motion because it affords us the opportunity to debate in the House what is a very important issue at this time.
I am sure there was opposition to the concept of Leader companies and partnerships and their establishment a number of years ago simply for the sake of opposition but their track record of performance in the intervening time has demonstrated how wise was the decision to set up such a structure. Particularly with the Common Agricultural Policy Pillar 2 funding, which is an integral part of the support for agriculture and rural areas in the country, we need a specific agency that is able to cater for the types of projects which would be eligible to apply for such grant aid.
The idea of subsuming these partnership companies under the general umbrella of the local authorities needs to be reconsidered. It is entirely undesirable to have them as part of the local authority administrative structure where issues relating to development proposals in a functional area can become the subject of a motion of censure or criticism at local authority meetings. The potential for undermining the entrepreneurial spirit across the rural parts, and, indeed, urban parts, of the country is real and potentially damaging, and needs to be considered. The administrative cultures that one will get with partnership companies and local authorities are diametrically different. Development officers who have to interview individuals in their communities, who invite in individuals with their different entrepreneurial and development projects, have to meet them to consider matters. They must look to see what sort of support is available to them.
One should look at the statistics for any of the areas across Ireland today. I am looking at those of my county in the constituency of Louth-East Meath.
I requested these statistics in recent days. In the period from 2009 to 2010, approximately 700 people either gained employment or became self-employed. That was at a time when the economy was labouring; the recession had hit us and the potential for creating jobs was at a low ebb. Those statistics tell us about the work the Louth Leader Partnership was doing during that period.
From 2011 to 2013, some 3,716 individuals were supported, while 17,082 young people were engaged in particular programmes. In addition, some 540 local community groups were supported, while 815 people participated in education courses. Some 2,690 people participated in labour market training, while 933 people were supported into employment or self-employment. Those statistics graphically underline the importance of maintaining the status quo as regards this developmental administration structure which has a successful track record.
I am sure there were individual circumstances around the country whereby, due to a combination of other elements, some companies were not as successful as others. However, we now need to examine best practice templates for running such development programmes. It is not a good idea to bring them under the umbrella of local authorities, so the matter needs to be reconsidered.
At a time when we require change and need to be seen to take political action in particular areas, the whole idea of quango hunting should be reconsidered. There may be small, cost-effective companies that are doing an excellent job of work, but an annual value-for-money assessment of them is needed. Those are the criteria to be used in order to decide what structures will be required in future.
I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate. Local and community development programmes constitute a major issue for rural Ireland. There is concern among many such companies across the spectrum regarding the realignment process. It goes back nearly 25 years to when the integrated development companies and, later, the Leader companies were being set up. Suspicions were raised at the time by local authorities with the Department of the Environment and since then local councils have been trying to get local development companies under their wings. The proposal is a retrograde step because local development companies have done excellent work across the country. This is borne out by the amount of work they have done in rural communities, including the rural community I serve. The companies have established a standard of excellence in the services they provide in my area, including Duhollow and Ballyhoura, which is second to none. They deal with a raft of issues.
The debate on the realignment process has been going on since the end of 2012. I am disappointed that the Minister, Deputy Hogan, has left the Chamber because I wanted to put some points clearly to him. Will he ensure that the criteria for selection of local action groups to develop local strategic plans will be drawn up so that existing Leader groups are neither disadvantaged, constrained nor prevented from winning any Leader tendering or selection process? That is the fundamental issue.
Will existing Leader groups that have operated successfully as local action groups for the past 20 or 25 years be supported to draw up their community-based local strategy plans for Leader and submit them to the Department for approval? Will they be allowed to implement and administer the delivery of all aspects of those plans? That question is fundamental to this debate.
Every Deputy knows at first hand the work undertaken by Leader companies. We can look back to the 1960s with the start of urbanisation in Irish society, but the Leader companies came from the EU and adopted a bottom-up approach which was applauded across the country. That approach has also been praised across the continent as being the best model to deliver funding. Ireland has now decided, however, that local development programmes will be centralised and realigned within local authorities. Under the proposed new system, parts of Cork and Kerry could not be realigned under any local authorities. The same applies to Ballyhoura which will be covering Cork and Limerick.
European funding of Leader programmes has been of great benefit to communities across the country, with regard to enterprise, job protection and community-based facilities and groups. People working in Leader companies go out at night to meet local community representatives and discuss plans with them. With the greatest respect to local authorities, I cannot see their staff doing the donkey work that Leader staff have been doing over the years. It is as if there are no boundaries within Leader companies when they examine issues and try to develop projects for funding. They deliver such projects extremely well.
The Minister should examine the proposed plans. Earlier in the debate we were told of what has happened to local representation with people moving eastwards, including in County Cork. There is a centralisation process under way, whether or not it is intentional. The abolition of town councils and the reduction of seats in Cavan, north Cork, west Cork and parts of Kerry and Clare are putting those people last because their representation has been reduced.
We must be serious about this because I do not think the realignment will achieve anything. There is a constant drive towards centralisation by policy-makers and departmental staff. We centralised the medical card applications and made an utter mess of them. We also centralised the student support grant scheme and it took nearly two years to correct it. The best possible way to organise the work of such action groups is to have them locally based. They are challenged daily on the work they are doing. People may ask if policies are correct but local people are on the boards, so they know what is best for their communities. Those people are working on a voluntary basis and are best placed to make decisions on local projects.
Some parts of the Duhallow region are 45 miles from county hall. My fear is that if such programmes are centralised those at the periphery will be looked after last. Local Leader groups and other community action groups can look after people's needs.
Issues arose recently about the rural transport scheme but the Department is now rowing back on it somewhat, saying that a mistake was made. This is particularly so in County Cork which is a giant administrative area. If this realignment of development programmes goes ahead, within four or five years or even less, people will realise the damage that was done. Leader is working and the European Court of Auditors has said it is a great scheme. Many new EU accession countries are looking at Ireland as the best model for delivering Leader funding, but in our wisdom we have decided to realign it under the aegis of local authorities.
In 1988 and 1989, when this first came into vogue, it was to be under the local authorities and was to be a ground-up approach. I appeal to the Minister of State, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, who is here on behalf of the Department. In the response she is to give I would like her to address those issues, because they are fundamental to how we progress. Questions have been asked about a raft of issues, and the Leader funding approach has been best practice. It has been an outstanding advocate for small, rural communities. I am not just talking about my area. In recent months I had reason to travel around the country and met people in Mayo, Cavan and Sligo. I saw communities that were almost dead, had lost the post office and the pub, but where a community hall had been built.
It has also happened in my area. The Department closed some schools due to insufficient numbers, realignment or centralisation. In my area, Glosh, some schools were closed 40 years ago. They have gone in there and are revitalising the community by putting in a fundamental, community-based structure. I appeal to the Minister to revoke these points. Some three or four weeks ago I raised it on Leaders' Questions and there was a discussion about whether the Leader network was negotiating with the Department. The Department knows the Leader companies' position on this and need not wait for any further submissions. The Department knows they are at loggerheads. It is time to step back with cool heads and ensure we do not lose what has been so vital to rural communities in the past 25 years.
I thank the Deputies for their participation in this sometimes robust debate over the past two days. It has allowed the Government clearly to explain its position and deal with the inaccuracies in the public domain. The Government is committed to delivering effective local and community development for all rural and urban communities. As detailed by the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Hogan, in his contribution to the House yesterday evening, he continues to value the contribution of local development companies throughout Ireland and looks forward to supporting their continuing role within a more joined-up approach to local development. The Minister believes the companies’ strength lies in their ability very directly to support and build the capacity of their communities - many speakers gave examples of this in their areas - and he sees this role continuing into the future.
The Minister’s local government reforms are not about playing to the gallery but creating sustainable models of local and community development where all participants, whether local government or local development, work in partnership to serve the communities. The Minister is dismayed at the level of misinformation and apparent misunderstanding that appears to prevail regarding his plans to reform both local government and the local development sector. If we do not modernise and support a local government system with a mandate and role that allows it to lead development activity, we will be prioritising structures over people and the delivery of effective services.
The new local community development committees will comprise stakeholders from local government, local development, State agencies and the community and voluntary sector. Nominees will be sought by the chief officer of the committee working alongside the council’s corporate policy group, and will be sought from the nominating bodies themselves, for example, the new public participation networks. Contrary to what was stated last night, the county manager cannot choose the members himself or herself. One of the primary reasons for reforming the delivery of local development support is to address corporate governance and value for money concerns at a local level. The new systems will ensure the maximum proportion of the funding available to local communities goes to provide support for projects in those communities and is not directed towards administration and management costs.
The local community and development programme, LCDP, successor programme, the social inclusion and community activation programme, SICAP, is one of the Department’s key priorities and is required to be subject to a public procurement process. This will be competitive and open to all local development companies, other not-for-profit community groups and commercial firms. Each local authority area will represent a separate lot. In particular, the process will ensure that there is an initial pre-qualification process or stage one. The objective of this is to identify all potential entities interested and eligible to deliver the new programme irrespective of the location of where tendering companies are headquartered.
Again, contrary to what was stated in the House yesterday evening, the SICAP development process included a consultation process in April 2014 on the SICAP framework and included stakeholder meetings and an online survey. The local development strategy selection process for Leader will be an open process. The decision-making component of Leader implementation will be constituted so that neither public authorities nor any single interest group can represent more than 49% of the voting rights. In addition, funding which is designated for local and community development initiatives will be ring-fenced and will not be used for any other purpose. I will ask the Minister to respond directly to Deputy Moynihan's questions to which he needs very clear answers.
The Minister is working with representatives of the island communities to ensure their unique needs are recognised. I reject the notion that local authorities cannot engage with communities. Elected members are the essence of representative democracy and are perfectly prepared to work in partnership with representatives of participative democracy, which we are enabling. The Minister also wishes to convey his overall determination to ensure the support for local and community development will be effective, efficient and, most importantly, centred on the needs of local communities.
While some of the Minister of State's points answered some of the points I made, she was told the SICAP would have to go out to tender, and that is why I did not raise the issue yesterday. Leader also had to be put out to tender last time, and we did so. The problem is this will never capture the public imagination because the devil is in the detail. The last time, the winning companies had to have a partnership board under EU rules because the decision making was staying with the board. While we could go to tender, the only people who could win the tenders were those who could prove they had a partnership board. Therefore, contrary to what can happen under SICAP, it was impossible for a private company with a non-partnership board to win the tender. It had to have community representatives such as social partners and statutory agencies. Although it must go out to tender, it does not have to do so in its current form.
I am disappointed in the reply, since I led with a detailed speech that dealt with many matters last night. The tendering process was not dealt with last night. People are being asked to tender for lots when they do not know what they are - "lot" is a technical term to describe the geographic area in which the service will be provided. The tendering companies are not being told what the breakdown of the lots within an area will be and, therefore, companies are submitting imaginary, fantasy tenders, trying to out-think the Department. This is the antithesis of openness and transparency. Last night, I suggested that rather than bulldoze ahead we pause for a moment. Reluctantly, I accept the LCDPs are there, under legislation passed by the House. Nevertheless, there are ever-growing problems with the mechanics of the process we are following.
As I said, the tender requirements will make it virtually impossible for the island companies to bid because they do not have the numbers of employees required by the tender documents to make a bid. We are talking about 3,000 people spread across four counties. In other cases, people do not know what they are bidding for because they do not know what the lots are. I have suggested we suspend the tendering process and, like in the game of "Monopoly", we return to "Go", and start again at the point of tendering. We should bring before an Oireachtas committee for detailed scrutiny the breakdown of the areas that will have companies and agree them before going to tender. Where necessary, we should allow cross-county companies to exist if that is the best arrangement for geographic reasons.
We should sort out how many local community development committees will be used and that should not be the decision of either a majority of a council or a county manager. I have pointed out the very obvious case of County Galway. The east of the county has fertile and flat land, with English-speaking locals, whereas half the locals in the west of the county speak Irish and the terrain is mountainous and rough. The topography is as different as two parts of any county can be. The west's population ratio compared with that of the east is 9:30, and 50% of the people in the west of the county speak Irish. The county stretches from the River Suck in Ballinasloe through to Slyne Head, and when we tried to amalgamate the county, it did not work and the western part of the county lost out.
The Government should have decided to treat the west of Galway separately from the east. It is extraordinary as Galway is the only county in Ireland where one cannot drive from one part of the functional area to another - from the west to the east - without going through another local authority area. One either has to go through Galway city, which is a local authority in its own right, or through County Mayo. The other option is to take a boat. That is the extent of the geographic separation. Somebody made a decision that a county so big and diverse should be one LCDC, and I understand that is the preference of the county manager. If it went before councillors, why would the 30 vote against the nine? There is a successful company in Duhallow which has expanded into different counties. Why break this if it is working?
We must decide where the LCDCs and companies are before going to tender. With regard to tender documents, it is not always true that small is inefficient or does not suit and everything must be a standard size in this country. Counties are an asymmetrical group of historical entities but we still accept them for what they are. Companies delivering the services should be partnerships, and it is not good enough that we could wind up with service delivery for social inclusion, Leader, Tús or the rural social scheme that is owned by a private multinational company which has a headquarters anywhere it wants. The process would no longer be embedded in the community if such a company made a successful bid.
Many professional so-called charity companies and service providers have a particular expertise in filling out tender forms, and such expertise may be missing from some much more grounded companies. I used to rail against this when I was a Minister, as local people may not have the correct experience of filling out tender documents, which are getting ever more technical and complicated, to the satisfaction of the people who will adjudicate the tender on an objective scoring basis. I hated what I termed the essay question and I tried to eliminate them as far as I could when I was a Minister. The form would ask why a club needed a new dressing room or if an applicant could point out social exclusion in a community. Some people knew the formula and officials told me what was the correct information to give, such as that a club would give a football team free meals or gear. I have never seen a GAA club that would have a child without a pair of boots or a jersey if he or she wanted to play. I have more experience with GAA clubs than others but I presume the same applies to soccer and other clubs. Many applicants did not realise that this had to go on the form, which had to be filled with grá mo chroí stuff. The experts knew what to do and they kept winning the funding. This is likely to continue as some very professional outfits will outbid more grounded local organisations in a tendering process.
We must be careful about change. Although it is good when it improves matters, change merely for its own sake is not good. The Government made promises about quangos and so on and it is performing optical illusions to prove it has eliminated some of them. That is instead of admitting that changing certain bodies which it looked to amalgamate or eliminate would not save a significant amount of money or bring improvement. For example, it took a long struggle to persuade the Minister responsible for the Gaeltacht not to try to amalgamate An Coimisinéir Teanga. I am glad that after 10,000 people took to the streets, he changed his mind, as there were very good reasons we set up that office. We looked at the other option initially and we decided for very good reasons that have now been accepted by the Minister that it was not a good arrangement. For example, the Coimisinéir Teanga once found against the Ombudsman with regard to language issues.
There is a fair bit of change taking place for change's sake and it is not necessarily delivering on a coherent vision. We had come to the idea that if local services are provided at one remove from the State, rather than having a plethora of companies operating in the same area, as we had in the past, one company should provide the full suite of services so that the citizen would know where to go. Deputies and even the Minister of State have experience of people coming to a clinic asking whether there are five enterprise agencies from which they might get a few bob. Instead, if people are looking for an enterprise grant, they should be sent to one agency with a full suite of options, taking in sites, grants and so on. We wanted to create a process involving all services, taking in rural transport, Tús and the rural social scheme. I would have eliminated the 1,000 FÁS companies as well, leaving only 53 limited companies with employment responsibilities rather than 1,000 community employment companies. We would have rationalised the process.
Many people know that to provide good rural transport services, a Tús scheme can be used, along with a community employment and rural social scheme. The process could be brought together to provide good value for money. It seems that the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government is now saying that it does not want to know about anything involving the Departments of Social Protection or Health. That means there is no joined-up thinking or a whole-of-government view. When we were in Government I attended meetings with departmental officials, and as there is a natural tendency to look after the interests of a Department, I tried to remind them that the Government was to serve the people and not the interests of individual Departments. The public cannot understand Departments at war and selfishly fighting over their domain rather than considering the big picture and the good of society. We were trying to implement a grand vision, with a wide range of services provided in each area by a locally based company with a local board and representation, complete with a sense of ownership.
As in any system, such as local authority elections, there were aspects of the way the boards were put together that I was not happy with. There were issues to be dealt with between the voluntary and community sectors. They could have been honed. If I was doing it again I would lay down stricter guidelines to ensure true community participation and that certain stronger voices in the community sector did not dominate. Everybody should go back to the beginning of this tendering process and reorganise it, having discussed it with the appropriate Oireachtas committee. We should then move forward together on this process in a way that protects the community ethos in the delivery of services, something many of us fear for.
Last night, the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government said: "The system also proposes to delegate the administrative checks required to verify expenditure to an independent entity with the capacity to ensure these checks are carried out to a consistently high standard at all times". Are we being told that for the Leader companies the inspection regime is being taken out of the Department and given to a private entity? Perhaps the Minister of State would ask the Minister to give me a specific reply.
I welcome the reference made by the Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Jan O’Sullivan, to the Minister’s interest in the islands. He has expressed that to me. The present tendering arrangement, however, is very island-unfriendly. I hope the Minister will decide to pull the islands out of the present tendering process because there is no way under the present criteria they can enter that process on a level playing pitch with the much larger companies around the country.
Amendment put:
The Dáil divided: Tá, 71; Níl, 44.
Tá
- Bannon, James.
- Barry, Tom.
- Breen, Pat.
- Burton, Joan.
- Buttimer, Jerry.
- Byrne, Catherine.
- Byrne, Eric.
- Carey, Joe.
- Coffey, Paudie.
- Collins, Áine.
- Conaghan, Michael.
- Conlan, Seán.
- Connaughton, Paul J.
- Conway, Ciara.
- Corcoran Kennedy, Marcella.
- Creed, Michael.
- Daly, Jim.
- Deenihan, Jimmy.
- Deering, Pat.
- Doherty, Regina.
- Donohoe, Paschal.
- Dowds, Robert.
- Doyle, Andrew.
- Durkan, Bernard J.
- Ferris, Anne.
- Flanagan, Charles.
- Griffin, Brendan.
- Hannigan, Dominic.
- Harrington, Noel.
- Harris, Simon.
- Hogan, Phil.
- Humphreys, Heather.
- Humphreys, Kevin.
- Keating, Derek.
- Kelly, Alan.
- Kenny, Seán.
- Kyne, Seán.
- Lawlor, Anthony.
- Lynch, Ciarán.
- Lynch, Kathleen.
- Lyons, John.
- McCarthy, Michael.
- McEntee, Helen.
- McFadden, Gabrielle.
- McGinley, Dinny.
- McHugh, Joe.
- McLoughlin, Tony.
- McNamara, Michael.
- Maloney, Eamonn.
- Mulherin, Michelle.
- Murphy, Dara.
- Murphy, Eoghan.
- Nash, Gerald.
- Neville, Dan.
- Nolan, Derek.
- Ó Ríordáin, Aodhán.
- O'Donnell, Kieran.
- O'Donovan, Patrick.
- O'Reilly, Joe.
- O'Sullivan, Jan.
- Penrose, Willie.
- Phelan, Ann.
- Reilly, James.
- Ring, Michael.
- Ryan, Brendan.
- Spring, Arthur.
- Stagg, Emmet.
- Stanton, David.
- Tuffy, Joanna.
- Wall, Jack.
- Walsh, Brian.
Níl
- Boyd Barrett, Richard.
- Broughan, Thomas P.
- Browne, John.
- Calleary, Dara.
- Collins, Joan.
- Collins, Niall.
- Colreavy, Michael.
- Coppinger, Ruth.
- Cowen, Barry.
- Crowe, Seán.
- Daly, Clare.
- Doherty, Pearse.
- Dooley, Timmy.
- Ellis, Dessie.
- Ferris, Martin.
- Fleming, Sean.
- Grealish, Noel.
- Healy, Seamus.
- Healy-Rae, Michael.
- Higgins, Joe.
- Keaveney, Colm.
- Kirk, Seamus.
- Kitt, Michael P.
- Mac Lochlainn, Pádraig.
- McGrath, Finian.
- McGrath, Mattie.
- McGrath, Michael.
- McGuinness, John.
- McLellan, Sandra.
- Martin, Micheál.
- Moynihan, Michael.
- Murphy, Catherine.
- Ó Caoláin, Caoimhghín.
- Ó Cuív, Éamon.
- Ó Fearghaíl, Seán.
- Ó Snodaigh, Aengus.
- O'Sullivan, Maureen.
- Pringle, Thomas.
- Ross, Shane.
- Shortall, Róisín.
- Smith, Brendan.
- Tóibín, Peadar.
- Troy, Robert.
- Wallace, Mick.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Emmet Stagg and Joe Carey; Níl, Deputies Michael Moynihan and Seán Ó Fearghaíl.
Amendment declared carried.
Is the motion, as amended, agreed to?
Vótáil.
Question put: "That the motion, as amended, be agreed to."
The Dáil divided: Tá, 72; Níl, 44.
Tá
- Bannon, James.
- Barry, Tom.
- Breen, Pat.
- Bruton, Richard.
- Burton, Joan.
- Buttimer, Jerry.
- Byrne, Catherine.
- Byrne, Eric.
- Carey, Joe.
- Coffey, Paudie.
- Collins, Áine.
- Conaghan, Michael.
- Conlan, Seán.
- Connaughton, Paul J.
- Conway, Ciara.
- Corcoran Kennedy, Marcella.
- Creed, Michael.
- Daly, Jim.
- Deenihan, Jimmy.
- Deering, Pat.
- Doherty, Regina.
- Donohoe, Paschal.
- Dowds, Robert.
- Doyle, Andrew.
- Durkan, Bernard J.
- Ferris, Anne.
- Flanagan, Charles.
- Griffin, Brendan.
- Hannigan, Dominic.
- Harrington, Noel.
- Harris, Simon.
- Hogan, Phil.
- Humphreys, Heather.
- Humphreys, Kevin.
- Keating, Derek.
- Kelly, Alan.
- Kenny, Seán.
- Kyne, Seán.
- Lawlor, Anthony.
- Lynch, Ciarán.
- Lynch, Kathleen.
- Lyons, John.
- McCarthy, Michael.
- McEntee, Helen.
- McFadden, Gabrielle.
- McGinley, Dinny.
- McHugh, Joe.
- McLoughlin, Tony.
- McNamara, Michael.
- Maloney, Eamonn.
- Mulherin, Michelle.
- Murphy, Dara.
- Murphy, Eoghan.
- Nash, Gerald.
- Neville, Dan.
- Nolan, Derek.
- Ó Ríordáin, Aodhán.
- O'Donnell, Kieran.
- O'Donovan, Patrick.
- O'Reilly, Joe.
- O'Sullivan, Jan.
- Penrose, Willie.
- Phelan, Ann.
- Reilly, James.
- Ring, Michael.
- Ryan, Brendan.
- Spring, Arthur.
- Stagg, Emmet.
- Stanton, David.
- Tuffy, Joanna.
- Wall, Jack.
- Walsh, Brian.
Níl
- Boyd Barrett, Richard.
- Broughan, Thomas P.
- Browne, John.
- Calleary, Dara.
- Collins, Joan.
- Collins, Niall.
- Colreavy, Michael.
- Coppinger, Ruth.
- Cowen, Barry.
- Crowe, Seán.
- Daly, Clare.
- Doherty, Pearse.
- Dooley, Timmy.
- Ellis, Dessie.
- Ferris, Martin.
- Fleming, Sean.
- Grealish, Noel.
- Healy, Seamus.
- Healy-Rae, Michael.
- Higgins, Joe.
- Keaveney, Colm.
- Kirk, Seamus.
- Kitt, Michael P.
- Mac Lochlainn, Pádraig.
- McGrath, Finian.
- McGrath, Mattie.
- McGrath, Michael.
- McGuinness, John.
- McLellan, Sandra.
- Martin, Micheál.
- Moynihan, Michael.
- Murphy, Catherine.
- Ó Caoláin, Caoimhghín.
- Ó Cuív, Éamon.
- Ó Fearghaíl, Seán.
- Ó Snodaigh, Aengus.
- O'Sullivan, Maureen.
- Pringle, Thomas.
- Ross, Shane.
- Shortall, Róisín.
- Smith, Brendan.
- Tóibín, Peadar.
- Troy, Robert.
- Wallace, Mick.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Emmet Stagg and Joe Carey; Níl, Deputies Michael Moynihan and Seán Ó Fearghaíl.
Question declared carried.