Mr. Christy Leyden:

On behalf of Clarecastle Community Development and its associated community groups, I thank the Chairman and members of the Joint Committee on Rural and Community Development for the invitation to meet them to discuss the co-ordination of grant aid to support rural towns and villages. I am chairman of Clarecastle Tidy Towns. I am accompanied today by Michael Foley, director of community development, and Gerry McMahon, who is in the Gallery.

Clarecastle is a village located just south of Ennis in County Clare. The village takes its name from a fortress settlement established at a strategic fording point on a small island in the River Fergus by the Normans way back in the middle of the 13th century. The castle that was built on the island was known as Caisleán Clár Átha an Dá Choradh, which means the castle at the bridge fording the two weirs. The reference to clár, or board in English, is significant as the county of Clare takes its name from this settlement. The current population of the greater Clarecastle area is just under 3,000 people. A look at the population statistics in the recent census will show the population has grown by almost 18% since 2002 and the trend is continuing with a major housing development still ongoing. The greater Clarecastle area is an ideal location to live in due to its facilities, natural amenities and close proximity to Ennis, Shannon and Limerick. It is also less than an hour away from Galway city.

I refer to community development. Like most towns and villages in the country, the downturn in the economy has had a negative effect on the village. It also coincided with the building of the Ennis and Clarecastle bypass. While the bypass removed thousands of cars from passing through the village every day, it left a dilapidated village in its wake as most of the heavy trucks used to build the bypass would carry their loads through the streets of the village. The new service roads to the bypass were targeted as dumping and fly-tipping sites, with the result that the both the village streetscape with derelict buildings and closed shops and the approach roads were in a poor state.

Clarecastle Tidy Towns was reformed in 2009, mainly to address the widespread dumping and fly-tipping sites. This generated a positive response from the community, with a sense of pride restored, and a new energy created to address the overall appearance of Clarecastle. There was a particular emphasis on addressing the streetscape, given the badly damaged footpaths and derelict buildings, and also on addressing specific needs such as the lack of a playground and other facilities. While the Tidy Towns team was happy to proceed with addressing the infrastructure challenges, it was obvious that a more comprehensive view of the needs of the community needed to be taken on board.

This led to the setting up of the Clarecastle community development CLG, CCDL, in 2012. After widespread consultation and a public meeting, a list of projects were identified, with streetscape enhancement, a new playground, a community garden, a village market, a village hub, the Gathering in 2013, signage and identity, and the promotion of local heritage and amenities among the priorities. I am glad to report to the committee there has been significant progress on most of the projects thus far. Once the projects were identified and subgroups established, the sourcing of funding became a priority and we quickly learned there is no such thing as a one-stop shop for funding. CCDL acted as co-ordinator, working with local authorities and various State agencies to source funding. It drafted a development plan that identified three pillars, namely, social, economic and physical, with Tidy Towns responsible for the physical pillar, which is our current primary focus for grant aid. Nevertheless, it is worth sharing the major achievements of the economic pillar in getting tourism and heritage studies and reports completed, and in positioning Clarecastle as an official destination stop on the Shannon Estuary Way. The setting-up of a successful men’s shed was a major achievement under the social pillar.

The topic of the meeting is the co-ordination of grant aid to support rural towns and villages. There is a need for a co-ordinated and integrated approach among Departments, local authorities and State agencies to promote a sustainable model for rural towns and villages. In our presentation, we have tried to demonstrate what targeted aid can do to a village such as Clarecastle, based on our drafted community plan. Clarecastle will soon start working on a new community development plan that will now have to take into account the announced closure in March 2020 of a major employer - Roche Ireland - which has provided excellent employment in the area since 1974. Clarecastle is in an ideal position to pilot a co-ordinated and integrated approach to promote a sustainable village model. To avail of grant aid, the important starting point is having a project that falls in line with national and county strategic planning. In our streetscape rejuvenation project, we were fortunate to have the assistance of the Clare County Council rural development team to progress a streetscape plan that was drafted by the council in 2007 and was part of the Ennis and Environs Local Area Plan 2008-2014, but funding was not available to progress the project at the time. The plan was an ideal fit for the town and village renewal scheme. Without this funding stream, the plan would never have been realised. We have applied four times to the scheme for funding to progress the Clarecastle streetscape rejuvenation project. Perhaps, with the benefit of hindsight, a flag could have been raised in the initial town and village renewal scheme application in 2016 to indicate that significant funding was required to complete the streetscape project. A staged funding arrangement could have been agreed at the time, based on original applications, with agreed annual funding until project completion. This would have given clarity, for instance, to local business and residents as to staged phases of street disruption and so on. We fully understand, however, the limitations of funding in any given year and Clarecastle was happy to reapply each year to continue the project. We mention this only in the context of addressing the core topic of the meeting, namely, co-ordination.

I ask Mr. Foley to conclude our contribution with the section on volunteerism.