Mr. Pat Daly:

It is very rare that we meet at a higher level than managers or directors of services. We can see around the table we are a little bit higher today. I wish the committee good morning and we hope we can be of assistance to them in its deliberations. I am Pat Daly, a member of Clare County Council and president of the Association of Irish Local Government. I am accompanied by our vice president, Councillor Damien Geoghegan, a member of Waterford City and County Council; our past president, Councillor John Crowe, another banner man; and Councillor Paul Taylor from Sligo County Council, a member of our executive committee. We are accompanied by our complement of two staff who are directors, Mr. Liam Kenny and Mr. Tom Moylan.

The association is essentially a network of the county and city councillors in the 31 local authorities in the State. Networking, training, and communication are our core missions. Our association has had a busy few weeks heavily engaged in training programmes throughout the country for councillors in the currently topical issues of housing and planning. Arising from this commitment we have had less time than we would have liked to prepare a response to your invitation. I am sure members will understand, especially those Deputies and Senators who are present, the importance of having a well-educated and knowledgeable body of councillors.

To return to the subject of the committee's inquiry, the 31 local authorities and local community development committees published their local economic community plans just eight weeks ago. I have the County Clare version and present it to the Chairman. Much work has been put into it. The plans and their follow-up actions represent a community and economic development framework that will see delivery through the county and city councils, the local economic and development committee and various local development agencies of considerable supports across a wide mosaic of areas, including social, cultural, educational, environmental and economic issues. The plans provide ambitious and one might even say aspirational objectives for their relevant county and city areas. The intention is that the plans will be a living and workable strategy and there are mechanisms in place to ensure they will be monitored and appraised on a continuous basis.

The plans were the product of a long and complex consultation process in which no stone was left unturned in endeavouring to engage with the public and with sectoral groups of all kinds so as to shape a vision for the county and city which would be truly inclusive and comprehensive. The consultation process was informed by research papers and studies compiled by the county and city councils, local third-level colleges and by professionals with specialist knowledge of demographics, local economies and social indicators. At this stage, we must acknowledge the commitment and hard work through the many hours of consultation of councillors, council staff, the boards and the staff of local development bodies, members of the public and voluntary bodies of all kinds. It is to their credit that an intense level of engagement was sustained through long periods of consultation, negotiation, analysis, drafting and finalisation.

Through the various stages of consultation, groups were brought into contact, which, in a purposeful project, broke down any barriers of uncertainty or hesitation. For example, it was understandable that some community development practitioners were hesitant about engaging with the local authorities, seeing them as being too bound up with statutory and bureaucratic processes to have the empathy needed for community development. However, as a body representing county and city councillors, we have maintained since the LCDCs were first mooted that councils have been in the business of community development since they were established more than a century ago. Before communities can think of developing, they need a certain basic infrastructure. The county and city councils, through their long-established statutory responsibilities of providing amenities and facilities of all kinds, of maintaining roads and pavements, of putting in place proper sanitation, of providing housing and accommodation, fashioned and shaped the very sinews of community development.

The contribution of county and city councils has not been limited to what might be called the hardware services, such as roads and sanitation. Councils have also been involved for decades with providing libraries, recreation and cultural facilities. In that sense, councils have provided the physical and social foundations on which communities can thrive. I could say without hesitation that we, as councillors, are the ultimate community representatives, responding, as we do, on a daily basis to a multitude of requests and issues brought to us by our neighbours, members of our communities and representatives of business and economic life in our localities. We must be experts in planning, housing, finance and so many other issues.

That said, we also recognise that the community development bodies that evolved from the 1970s onwards opened up new ways at looking at the concept of community. They championed an approach that was flexible and inclusive in the way it brought communities together. The community development approach had a particular strength in linking groups that were marginalised into the process of building and strengthening peoples' sense of belonging to the place in which they live out their lives. The plans integrate as part of mainstream county strategy the issues affecting groups such as young people, single-parent families and new residents from other countries. Were it not for the inclusive nature of the process that informed the plans, such groups would be left behind in the general social and economic evolution of communities.

What we see then in the local community and development plans is a coming together of two traditions of public life, one with a democratically elected council and a strong track record of delivering the infrastructural underpinning of community life, and the other, the community development approach, more recently established, drawing from the practices of participatory democracy, with a capacity to bring with it the enthusiasm and energy that exists both generally and within specific groups in the communities.

The local community and development plans are today taking their first steps on what will be a long road. Eight weeks into their formal existence is perhaps a premature stage at which to form judgments on their likely success. We live in a rapidly changing world. Since the closure of the consultation phase of the plans earlier this year events have taken place that could not have been envisaged 12 months ago. Thus, the assumptions, ambitions and aspirations which drive the plans will have to be followed up in a way which is adaptable yet tenacious if their objectives are to be fulfilled. As I said, it is a five-year plan which is at a very early stage.