Ms Fiona O'Loughlin:

I thank the joint committee for inviting me to speak on behalf of the Irish delegation to the Committee of the Regions and following up on the commitment it gave when the delegation was last before it on 13 February to discuss the European semester process. We have provided the committee secretariat with a short written contribution on our experience of the European semester process which I hope has been circulated to committee members for their information. The submission deals specifically with the Europe 2020 strategy and the national reform programme which is a fundamental component of the semester process. We do not address the stability and convergence programmes, as they have less direct relevance for local and regional authorities and the work of the Committee of the Regions. The submission very much reflects our experiences to date, both as EU level representatives and members of local and regional authorities.

It might, perhaps, be useful if I were to take a few minutes to summarise the key points. In our experience the Irish approach to the Europe 2020 strategy and developing the national reform programme specifically is that while it presents many positive opportunities, it has four fundamental weaknesses. There is a general lack of awareness of the strategy and Ireland's contribution to achieving its targets; a lack of real engagement and meaningful consultation with stakeholders in the process; a seeming lack of joined-up government in terms of the measures it contains or fails to include; and the absence of a local and regional dimension which makes it impossible to assess if measures are effective in all regions and whether the pursuit of purely national targets leaves some regions further behind.

It seems that the lessons learned from implementation of Europe 2020's predecessor, the Lisbon targets, have not been learned. Despite guidance from the European Commission and a commitment made by member states to foster greater ownership of and responsibility for the strategy and to have a more inclusive partnership approach in reaching the targets set, there has been little or no improvement in the way we in Ireland have approached the development of the national reform programme.

In short, we would like the Government to initiate a process among policy stakeholders which, first, raises the profile of the Europe 2020 strategy to create a greater awareness of it and the Irish response to the targets it sets out. For example, many county managers and local authorities were unaware of the national reform programme, NRP, until we informed them of it and its significance. I suspect many are still unaware of it. Second, we would like the Government to establish a more structured, systematic and meaningful process of consultation on the development of the NRP and the achievement of its targets. In the past our regional assemblies have been given less than a week to make comments and few if any of the comments or suggestions have been acted upon. In addition, no implementation roles are assigned at local or regional levels.

As well as the weakness in the process, we also have particular concerns regarding the structure and content of the NRPs that have been produced to date. First, Ireland’s national reform programme is spatially blind and the concept of balanced regional development is not reflected anywhere in the text as a key policy objective. Second, there is no real recognition of the key regional challenges facing Ireland, and the programme says nothing of the specific competitiveness challenges facing the weaker regions. In this regard there are only national targets; there are no regional targets of any kind.

Third, we would like some regional targets and regional measures for some of the priority actions. In the submission we have included some tables which illustrate clear regional divergence. In our view the one-size-fits-all approach does not necessarily work in all cases.

Fourth, no practical roles have been assigned to regional or local bodies in meeting the national targets despite the range of activities that these authorities currently undertake, and will undertake following the recent local government reforms, to support economic development and job creation.

Fifth, there is little recognition of the planning framework and the contribution of regional planning guidelines to help meet Ireland’s climate change targets. We think there needs to be a more coherent approach to land use and economic development.

Finally, I wish to make a more specific point on the implementation of the European Regional Development Fund programme at regional level. The regional assemblies, in drafting the operational programmes, are required to demonstrate the strategic alignment of planned investment priorities at regional level with the NRP and country-specific recommendations which do not have any regional dimension. There is a little more detail on this in the submission, as it is a requirement of the regulations, but despite submissions on it to the Department nothing has been done to date to resolve the incoherence.

In our submission we also refer to two very recent documents which support the points we are making. I am sure members have already seen the stocktaking report on the Europe 2020 strategy from the European Commission, published on 5 March. That gives an assessment of progress in meeting the strategy’s targets but also makes some relevant observations on the growing gaps between member states and within member states. In addition, it underlines that experience has shown that the active engagement and participation of local and regional authorities is key in the delivery of the Europe 2020 objectives. Those are two issues that we suggest the Government needs to carefully consider, especially in the context of the Europe 2020 mid-term review over the next 12 months.

The other document is a declaration adopted by the Committee of the Regions on 7 March which is based on a survey of more than 1,000 local and regional authorities across the EU. It calls for a renewed Europe 2020 strategy based on stronger partnership and ownership by all levels of Government, the introduction of a territorial dimension, more transparency and accountability and multi-level governance, to include national parliaments. The declaration makes a number of other points which I recommend to the committee as they are most relevant in the Irish context.

We consider that with the process of ongoing reform of the local government sector there is now a real opportunity to actively work towards the possibility of all regions in Ireland building on their potential and to achieve smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. The next national reform programmes and the European semester process could help facilitate that. There is room for a more innovative, ambitious and tailored approach to our future economic well-being, and I hope we have made this case coherently in the submission.

We have also included a set of questions which reflect some of our concerns and we hope the committee will raise some of them with the Minister. I again thank the committee for the invitation and the attention of members. I am happy to respond to comments or questions members might have. I look forward to ongoing consultation between the committee and the Committee of the Regions.