Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Before we conclude, I have one or two comments to make. Fundamentally, one of the reasons this problem, which we have been talking about, skirting around and going around in circles on, exists is an ideological problem. There is a belief across European institutions and sections of the Irish Government that somehow or other funding the cost and expenses of someone to deliver a project is wrong and needs to be almost demonised. The reality of it is that it is part of the project and part of the key delivery in the project and if you are not willing to engage in that, projects will not delivered. That comes down to the point about waiting nine months to get a reimbursement and in the meanwhile somebody has to fund that and put it in place that. Either the State does it or Europe cops on to itself and recognises that this chunk of cost is relevant and important. It comes into that whole trust area.

In previous experiences in my life, I dealt with funding. We were able to recognise that you can fund projects, but you can also have funding which was ring-fenced but where that is no longer the case. That is just a polite way of saying that we are going to fund the bureaucracy because it has to be funded. There are not people who are able to take flights if they are not able to take a taxi. If they are not able to have cost and subsistence to go and do a project, then the project does not get done. Too often there is an interlocking between institutions and people working in them who almost view that as bad and think everybody is trying to make a buck out of it for themselves. The reality of my experience is that of course there is fraud. There always is fraud and that is why you need monitoring systems and everything else but it is usually on a very small scale and most organisations go out of their way to deliver.

My view on the EU funding officer within councils is this: I am absolutely supportive that this is something that should be paid for as a separate position. The Americans have a great expression saying that when you are up to your neck fighting alligators, it is very difficult to remember that you came to drain the swamp. If there are officers within local authorities at the moment, their funding is dependent on the project they are working on. It is a downward cycle. I mean no disrespect to anyone doing it, but their first thought is their project and how they keep going and get to the next round of it. There is no incentive to look at more obscure funding areas, more difficult to access funding areas, or look at promotion of European funding at a general level because their job could run out. The local authorities and the Government need to cop that there is a huge benefit to having a position that is non-project dependent.

My experience of local authority administration is that the key thing that gets delivered is something that has a director of service's name bolted onto it. After that, there is a layer just below but that delivers. If somebody is coming in and they are either not permanent staff and are project dependent or it is an add-on to something else, which is to do with a third thing that is partially over there and they come to it once a week, that tells everybody else in the local authority just how important the thing is in the first place. It is about that mindset. Ironically, they are losing on the double because they are not even beginning to contemplate it. Those are the two key changes that are needed. If I am right, I hope and presume that is really what the witnesses were driving at for the bulk of it. That is something we as a committee can work on. I do not know if anyone wants to come back in on that. It seems they are happy enough that I have gotten it roughly right.

I thank the witnesses for coming in and for the really good information we have received from them.