Paudie Coffey (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will directly follow on from what Senator Boyhan has said in recognising the primacy of the elected mandate of public representatives. However, I believe we cannot have it both ways. I disagree with the Senator on one aspect. We heard the previous speakers arguing about the system that existed previous to the current system. Elected members may have been members of those boards, but they certainly were not in a position to be fully endorsed as elected members. It was community groups and Leader groups that put forward their projects, had them approved and subsequently spent what was substantial public funding. I recognise that many of the projects were excellent. However, if we are to be honest about it, many of the projects were poor as well. There was a lot of money wasted in many Leader projects in which governance possibly was not as it should have been. Improvement was needed and a greater recognition of the elected mandate of councillors was needed.

The new system certainly brings that to the fore, in which a strategic plan is developed and subsequently and finally endorsed by the elected members of a council. I believe that is where the accountability will now come into play. I understand and accept the arguments made around bringing in more bureaucracy. That is something I would say to the County and City Management Association, CCMA. The new programme has to be as accessible as possible. A criticism I would have of the previous system also is that the community groups with the greatest capacity that were best at applying always received the best funding. The ones with the least capacity that were possibly the most disadvantaged and did not have the capacity to make proposals for programmes received the least funding. That regurgitated itself over many years. Automatically, the successful communities repeatedly had successful programmes while the rest were left behind. If we are honest about it, that is the way it has been.

The proposals before us have the potential to address these deficits. However, I would have concerns about the bureaucracy and I urge the CCMA to work with the elected members to ensure the funding is prioritised to the areas in most need. The butter cannot be spread too thinly. I recognise that. With regard to programmes and strategies, areas and localities that need this injection and lift will have to be identified initially. I urge the CCMA to work with local councillors in this regard. I also encourage the AILG to give this committee, through the chairmanship of the Cathaoirleach, feedback on how it feels the programme is working, where the deficits are and whether there is too much bureaucracy. I believe we should revisit this in six months or a year to evaluate the success of this programme. The best people to do that are the people before the committee. We can then take that argument to the Department with responsibility for the environment, as members have said.

It is welcome that we have the CCMA together with the leadership of the councillors of the AILG and their executive here today to tease out some of the issues as we face into new programmes. I have no doubt there will be challenges ahead. As a former councillor and former chairperson of a county development board for many years myself, there is one thing that I would pick up on. During that time, I saw agencies, councillors and council executives coming together, formulating strategic plans for their relevant area and prioritising actions that had high aspirations and that were going to deliver. Unfortunately, there was no obligation on the State agencies or Departments to engage actively with those county development plans. I found it extremely frustrating when I saw excellent work being done to formulate the plans, with excellent actions and priorities put in place, but no follow through because there was no obligation to do so. Unfortunately, much of it was lip service.

What I would say in favour of the current system being implemented is that there is an obligation on State agencies to engage actively. I would be interested to hear from the CCMA whether any of that engagement has taken place to date, how serious the agencies are about it and whether they understand that they now have an obligation to engage and take action as part of these plans. Those are the critical areas we need to focus on. I certainly believe this is a step forward in recognising the mandate of elected councillors. I believe they will have a greater role and power in endorsing and improving plans and ensuring funding is spent in the most efficient and best way possible to lift all localities, not just those that are best at applying for it.