Ms Martina Earley:

I would like to take the opportunity to give the committee a flavour of what we are at and to showcase a few initiatives that we are developing. I just want to make sure that the committee knows during this meeting that we are more than just a Leader company delivering the Leader programme. We are delivering the SICAP funding programme and are also involved in many other European projects. What we have been doing in the last number of years - we have been around since 1991 - has been about developing greater partnerships on the ground on an inter-agency basis with the communities to effect change and to realise projects which are in tandem with delivering on the objectives set out in the County Roscommon local economic community plan.

I will give the committee a flavour of a few of the initiatives in which we are involved. Under the Social Inclusion and Community Activation Programme 2015-2017, SICAP, which concentrates on the most socially disadvantaged in the county, we have the rural men's initiative, which has been active since 2004. It is a good example of how the men in question have grown in confidence and taken on their own actions. By giving them proper resources, they devise their own plans. They recently wrote a book, a biography of their lives and their heritage, particularly in terms of the small farming community. It is an asset for preserving that heritage. We are also involved in delivering the Roscommon age-friendly strategy, the care and repair scheme and the trusted tradesmen initiative. In this way, we are delivering many actions for the older population. County Roscommon has a large population in that regard.

We have piloted and completed a training programme for the farming community. We have five rural locations throughout the county and, from our work on the ground, are finding out the community's needs. For example, there is a significant need for the farming community to be upskilled in order to ensure that people avail of all subsidies and farm properly. Many people in County Roscommon are happy farming, but they want to ensure that they are doing it in the most efficient way possible. We have set up an interagency group with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Teagasc, Bank of Ireland, the IFA, the Irish Countrywomen's Association, ICA, and the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association, ICMSA. The pilot programme was a success. It was based on broadband provision. Broadband provision in all rural areas is a priority and is our recommendation for this committee.

County Roscommon has vibrant communities and great local leadership through local development companies and the county council. All that we need now is resources so that the communities can, linked with State agencies, solve their own problems. From our work on the ground, we have found ourselves to be the link between various agencies and supports at a local level. Without this vital link, many people in rural areas do not know how to access the right support schemes. There are many support schemes and Government initiatives, but without a local enabler, rural areas will not benefit from them.

Another example of an initiative in which we are involved is the Frenchpark integrated youth and community space. It is a youth space and one-stop-shop, with all services being delivered in the community centre and responding to young people's needs. Services are centrally located in a rural community. The community resource centre in Ballaghaderreen is a one-stop-shop for the jobs club, Leader, mental health associations, the lakes and legends tourism initiative and older people's services. It is centrally located and embedded in the community, with resources targeted on local needs. We have a third level participation graduate retention programme. Under the local economic community plan for Roscommon, the Roscommon Leader partnership is charged with finding a local solution for graduate retention. It is a major issue in the county. We have the second highest number of graduates, but they are not returning to the county. By linking with third level institutes and employers and providing an IT solution for graduates in terms of a skills register and dedicated training, we are making headway in this area. We have become successful enough in another European project to bring it to the next level.

We are involved in the EU's ERASMUS+ programme, which helps communities to achieve their objectives. Under this, we are involved in the Creative Communities Igniting Change project, of which I have an example with me; the Food Incubators Transforming Regions project, which is to build a food centre of excellence in Castlerea, County Roscommon; and Youth Enterprise through the Arts, which is to upskill youth workers so that they can support entrepreneurship and creativity in their youth and early intervention activities. The solution for rural employment issues is not just multinational companies. Self-employment opportunities are key. The sooner one builds and fosters that environment in a county, the better. We also have a young community mediators project and a mainstreaming student entrepreneurship project, which takes the third level retention project to the next step.

I will cite a practical example of how these projects are effecting change. Ballaghaderreen has been designated the town team, with local activists deciding to concentrate on building creative industries, showing the creative sector free work space and asking it to relocate to that area. In conjunction with this, we have developed specialised training through our European project partners to support the sector in taking up that work space. We have also linked up with GMIT, which provides the sector with progression to education, and the local enterprise office supports it with mentoring. In short, a disused work space in Ballaghaderreen is free to entrepreneurs to take up for a year and, hopefully, they will set up businesses in the town. It is a proactive attempt by a community to invite enterprises to the area and to tell them that it is open for business, has disused space and wants to meet them half way.

These are just some examples of our projects. It is important to have strategic investments in our region. Specific regional infrastructure is needed. We have a great resource on our boundaries in the third level institutes. They possess considerable knowledge and research, but there needs to be a connection with rural areas in order that the institutes' research and development, learning and innovation can be brought out of urban areas and linked with employers in our county so that there can be new enterprise in rural areas.

Decentralisation has been great for our area. The decentralisation of public services should be a priority. The Leader budget has been cut. We will recommend that, as was previously the case, the CLÁR programme should match Leader funding and increase the budget for our area, which successfully built community-based key infrastructural projects previously. The €200,000 cap on de minimisaid under the Leader programme will prove a barrier to key strategic investment.