Ms Máire Uí Mhaoláin:

Can I please answer some of Deputy Ó Cuív’s questions? There was the fact that the programmes were divvied out in lots. He asked if the last programming period for LEADER and the Social Inclusion and Community Activation Programme, SICAP, was a big blow to the islands. It almost decimated our company, to be quite honest. It transpires from our experience that it did not work for the islands, to a great extent. We currently deliver the LEADER programme in the Donegal islands, the Mayo islands and the Cork islands. We also deliver the LEADER programme on the mainland in Cork. We have the rural social scheme, RSS, all over the Irish islands. We also have the rural recreation and walks scheme in Cork. We are therefore spread out country-wide, but we are based on Inis Oírr, one of the Aran Islands. It is always a shock to people, and to the islanders on the three Aran Islands and on Inishbofin Island, that we do not deliver any programmes, the LEADER programme specifically, or SICAP to those islands. Even people from Government Departments have remarked that although we are based on the Aran Islands we do not deliver the programmes to them. It is just ridiculous. As well as that, the last programming period had huge implications on our company, where we had to cut staff hours and cut our cloth according to our measure. We have managed to keep going.

On the Deputy's question as to how it affected us, the LEADER programme is now under the Local Community Development Committee, LCDC, on a county-wide basis. We managed to get money ringfenced for the Donegal islands and the Cork islands. However, we had to fight hard for it. We were fighting against all the other local development companies as well. It is a huge waste of resources to have groups that are trying to achieve the same thing up against each other and competing for resources in that way. Of course, we have a tiny population, so it was difficult for us to have to fight for money, but we did.-----