Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Senator Coffey spoke about the influence of councillors in spending decisions. My experience of the community activation programme tendering process as a member of the local community development committee was that we did not get to see the detail of what was being agreed. There was a sub-committee of the local community development committee that dealt with the tender. We had to approve it but we did not know about the programmes or activity and we did it blind. The next time the tender happens there will be a plan, but because of how the tendering process works the members of the LCDC do not get to compare the content of the plan with the content of the tender, which is a real problem and it means almost nobody on the LCDC gets to have any real say over the details of any of that. That needs to be looked at.

I am very concerned over how this process has led to a centralisation of funding in very large organisations, namely the partnership boards. I am not of the view that councillors need to dictate to every group that gets funding. There are many groups, particularly in disadvantaged areas, which were doing very beneficial work in the communities but no longer get any funding. Community development projects are gone, independent training centres are on the way out and in many cases have lost their funding. The women's support networks lost their funding from the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government and had to get funding elsewhere. There is a concentration in very large groups like the partnerships, which do very important work but there is a loss of that independent, vibrant grass-roots community sector and local authorities do not have the funds through their community grants to make up that shortfall, which is a serious error.

While I know tendering is Government policy, it has an impact. That impact will only be seen at the level at which the managers and councillors operate. It needs to be reviewed because it profoundly changes the nature of the relationship between the funder and the service deliverer. It is one of the real problems I have with the programme.