Ms Mary Mullen:

I am another of these fools to whom Mr. Chris Byrne referred. I am a community representative and chairperson of Monaghan Integrated Development. I come from a small rural community in Monaghan.

The reform of local government highlighted the importance of the local co-ordination of rural development initiatives. It acknowledged the importance of maintaining the expertise, skills and local knowledge of local development boards. However, we have had a host of other funding pots, such as CLÁR, town and village renewal schemes and rural economic development zones, REDZ, but our rural development companies have not been asked to implement these programmes. It would make more sense to have an integrated approach to the delivery of these.

Over the past two years, we have seen the removal of many county councillors and State sector representatives from our boards. Many chief officers of the councils have interpreted correspondence they received from the Department as an opportunity to stop appointing public representatives and local authority members to positions on local development company boards.

The failure to fill these positions is probably leaving our public representatives more distant than ever from rural development. Many members are questioning their future on these voluntary boards. They are expected to manage the governance of programmes, the plans for which they no longer have a role in developing. They have a responsibility under employment law for employing the programme staff.

We now have penalties for failing to reach targets under the social inclusion and community activation programme, SICAP. Local development companies were never meant to be commercial entities. Where are we expected to find money to pay financial penalties if they are imposed? We are not commercial entities and never have been. The most important thing in helping to sustain viable rural communities is to give the people living in these rural communities an input into planning the future of their own communities. No one is more qualified than they are to say what is good for their communities. While they need the help of other agencies, they must be given the power to make decisions about their own community.

I will cite an example from my local community. We are situated on the Border with Tyrone and Fermanagh. In troubled times, we were completely cut off. We had one way into the community and one way out of it. We saw our community totally decimated. We got support from IFI, INTERREG and other programmes. We have built a community-owned hotel. Between part-time and full-time workers we have a staff of about 30. With the aid of Leader funding we have developed all-weather playing pitches. We are providing facilities for the people of our rural community, which is as rural as one could get in a rural county. That is because the people were given the help to do what needed to be done. It was a completely bottom-up approach and not top-down, which is what is happening in many programmes now.