Mr. Aidan Campbell:

I thank the Chair and members for the invitation to meet them. The Rural Community Network is an NGO, a voluntary and community organisation with 250 member groups across Northern Ireland. Our main areas of interest are rural and community development.

In terms of the issues the committee is addressing today, many Border communities are on the periphery of both jurisdictions and citizens need to be better connected to opportunity, either locally or in major towns and cities. Many of these communities are still recovering from the legacy of the conflict. Broadband connectivity and a decent road network are a prerequisite to encourage young people to remain in, or return to, these rural communities. The closure of public services can lead to a vicious circle where young people and young families see no future in those communities, leading to further decline.

Government, North and South needs to put in place policies and programmes that sustain North-South networking and co-operation. Brexit and the absence of a functioning assembly and Executive risks regressing into back-to-back development, which will further marginalise Border communities.

The 2014-2020 Northern Ireland rural development programme is worth up to £623 million. Some £70 million in the current programme is allocated to the LEADER programme. The EU rural development programme has been a key policy driver as well as providing a ring-fenced funding pot that can only be spent on development of rural communities. As of now, it is unclear what replaces the rural development programme post Brexit.

The Good Friday Agreement identified the PEACE programme, INTERREG and LEADER II and their successor programmes as areas of potential North South co-operation. The UK-EU withdrawal agreement recognises the need to protect the 1998 agreement "in all its parts". It states that both Governments will honour their commitments to the PEACE and INTERREG funding programmes and that the possibilities for future support will be examined favourably. It is of concern to Rural Community Network and other rural stakeholders that specific reference to the LEADER programme was omitted from the withdrawal agreement.

The Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, DAERA, has established a Brexit rural society working group which has produced an issues paper. In the view of RCN, however, Northern Ireland has barely started discussing what a future policy or programme for rural development post Brexit will look like. Our concern is that rural development is very far down the agenda among the myriad other issues affected by Brexit, and none of this is helped the absence of a functioning assembly.

In spite of the problems, there are opportunities. Agriculture and rural development are devolved matters and a functioning assembly could shape any future rural development policy to rural communities and reduce bureaucracy. The Northern Ireland Executive has committed significant matching funding from the Northern Ireland block grant in previous programme periods. It will not be beginning from a standing start, therefore, in funding a successor rural development programme. Any new programmes must complement the LEADER programme in the Border counties, both North and South, to enable learning, sharing and important co-operation projects to continue.