Andrew Doyle (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Keating and Mr. Maguire for their presentations, which were opportune given the timelines for the reconstitution of the new FLAGs within the EMFF consultation period.

Mr. Keating mentioned the local development companies and Leader, but they are not the same and neither are they competitors. There are comparisons, however, and there are lessons to be learned from the original establishment of Leader companies and the rural development programme over 20 years ago. A lot of money was thrown at them initially but due diligence was not run over every project, which landed some of them in trouble at the time. FLAGs will initially take smaller steps to try to get themselves correctly formatted. Everyone has said that the structure and template were good but they needed to improve their ability to fund projects. In his summary, Mr. Keating said they needed to focus on job creation. Jobs will be the lifeblood of the communities they are targeting. We would like to see better funding, but we also want to ensure that they can access and draw down funding from other sources. Today's discussion has been useful and hopefully it will help people when they consider how they want FLAGs to work in the future, for both policy makers and participants. For that reason, I hope the crossfire of questions and answers in this engagement has been helpful. I also wish to thank members of the committee. There has been a good deal of interest in this subject. The committee members are keen to see that this project gets onto a correct footing and is properly funded in time to come. Once again, I thank the witnesses for coming before the committee.