Mr. Pádraig McEvoy:

I thank the committee for the opportunity to speak to the members. I am here in a substitute role on behalf of some of the other members of the association.

Three regional assemblies form the Association of Irish Regions. They are the Eastern and Midland Regional Assembly, the Northern and Western Regional Assembly and the Southern Regional Assembly. Established under the Local Government Reform Act 2014, the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality govern the exercise of regional assemblies' competences. Each constituent local authority nominates locally elected members, who are closest to the citizens, to oversee and make decisions through the statutory functions of each regional assembly. Local authorities provide the core funding for the assemblies, whose combined employees are limited to around 80.

Regional assemblies are statutorily mandated to co-ordinate strategic policy between local authorities to support coherent spatial planning and environmentally sustainable economic development for societal benefits, ensuring consistency with national programmes, plans, policies, proposals and objectives set by the Government.

In collaboration with local authorities, regional assemblies formulate, adopt, implement and monitor regional spatial and economic strategies and five metropolitan area strategic plans. Centred on Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick-Shannon and Waterford, these MASP policy documents extend to include adjoining local authorities. Each regional spatial and economic strategy assists public bodies, Departments, State agencies and local authorities with the collaborative delivery of democratically approved strategic objectives in the RSES and MASP documents.

The regional assemblies play instrumental roles in delivering EU policy in Ireland. They manage the delivery of regional operational programmes and participate in European territorial co-operation programmes and EU regional projects. They facilitate and assist local authorities in collaborating with EU institutions on regional and local development matters and support the national delegation to the Committee of the Regions, as Mr. Murphy mentioned. The assemblies manage in excess of €1 billion of EU funding in Ireland so they make a significant contribution.

Each assembly contributes a statutory role in the development plan and local economic and community plan process and adopts implementation strategies, assisted by EU project partnerships and funding. These develop capacities across local authorities, the third-level education sector and other public bodies for successful implementation.

While regional assemblies aim to create transformative change within the national policy framework, they are limited by structural challenges. Structural linkages from regional assemblies to the national level are ad hoc, diffuse and weak. Regional assemblies are circumvented in strategic planning matters such as population targets and housing needs assessments. Project Ireland 2040 funding mechanisms and strategic investment decisions remain highly centralised. Ireland's regional governance is characterised by weak autonomy and a lack of devolved funding powers, unlike competing EU regions that benefit from multi-annual funding programmes at subnational levels. This is particularly apparent for metropolitan areas with significant growth targets and challenges but no statutory regional co-ordination mechanisms for delivering funding. Local authorities fund the regional assemblies and nominate elected members who do not have a stated regional or geographic mandate. Tensions between local and regional roles can arise and limit incentives for elected members to provide more leadership to address challenging issues, such as climate change, rapid population expansion and better balanced regional development. A multiplicity of regional public bodies, some with related or overlapping roles and varying administrative geographies, can obscure the mandates of regional assemblies, leaving people uncertain about their functions and so forth. With contributions to strategic planning and EU funding in Ireland since 2015, the recruitment and influence of leading employees in regional assemblies depend on aligning posts with equivalent conditions across local government, the Civil Service and public bodies.

Regional assemblies in Ireland play an important role despite having fewer devolved competences than and a different electoral mandate from their EU counterparts. Reform should enhance regional performance by integrating planning with the resource management that affects the regions. Regional assemblies should be given direct responsibility and greater visibility towards achieving national objectives. We ask that any implementation review the committee might recommend be comprehensive in its examination of the local government process, encompassing both empowerment and responsibility at local and regional levels.