Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 23 November 2016

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs

Sustaining Viable Rural Communities: Discussion (Resumed)

9:00 am

Mr. Barry Sheridan:

Yes. That interconnectivity and inter-agency model, and the support we get that way, is key to the development not only of sheds but also broader community groups.

We work together on these types of programmes.

To go back to the Chairman's remarks about the level of help and how we measure the impacts, one of the biggest challenges we have is the fact that every funding application is based on how many boxes can be ticked and what the impact will be at the end of the day. At a very basic level for us, the impact is that we are opening one and a half sheds every week. There is still a huge unmet need out there as evidenced by the level of growth. The issue is how we demonstrate that. We have introduced a new programme called sheds for life which is based around improving the health and well-being of all our men throughout the country. That will be monitored and evaluated from day one. We will be able to measure the impact of that programme and any other programmes we roll out.

I will now hand over to Mr. Kelly.