Mr. Paul Reid:

I will make a few general comments and then call on my two colleagues to address some of the technical questions. There is no doubt that this process is at an early stage. The AILG delegation made that point in terms of the development of plans, their implementation and the overall process and governance. From an executive point of view, we are looking at it closely to see the effectiveness and forming a view about how it may be possible to streamline, in terms of some of the points made by Deputies and Senators, decision-making and bureaucracy. It is early days, however. In this early phase, one of they key parts of the process consists of the public participation networks. Deputy Ó Broin asked about their stage of development and effectiveness. Again, it is very early. Where they have been very useful has been in galvanising or co-ordinating a large number of groups into one process. Speaking from the perspective of my own county, there are more than 420 groups in the PPN in its entirety. We have been aiming across all the local authorities to give PPNs some support to help to strengthen their capacity building. That includes building Internet sites for them so that all of the various policy documents are accessible and supporting the election of nominees to LCDCs. We have given them a great deal of support and I have certainly seen a strong and steady improvement over the last year or so in the capacity of the PPNs.

Senator Coffey asked about the engagement of the agencies and the effectiveness of that. It is strengthening as we move through this process. To give some examples, we work at local level across a number of different processes that make an impact at local level, including socio-economic processes, age-friendly initiatives, on one of which we have been working heavily in particular, and mental health. In those areas, we have seen agencies co-ordinating much more strongly. The Departments of Health and Social Protection and the HSE have been working strongly with local authorities and that has been very encouraging from our perspective. I am actually quite positive about the capacity going forward to make these processes work and to strengthen the role of elected members. I make the point around some of the strategic policy committees, which throws another acronym into the mix today, and the economic aspects of this. Committee members made some points about the role elected local authority members can have in engaging with State agencies like the IDA, Enterprise Ireland and local enterprise offices having regard to their roles and strategies. We have seen very good engagement from elected members.

They have given us very good direction on what areas to focus on in each of the local authorities.

Senator Boyhan commented on our recommendations and I shall briefly cover some of queries. We made a point about the roll-out of broadband in our submission. We are working with the Department and Minister on the current national tender for the national broad strategy and the role that local government can play. We do not fund the roll-out but, following tender process, we will work to ensure that we put in place streamlined agreements and supports, whether there are planning or wayleave issues, to support the successful tenders in order that they can quickly roll out broadband across the country. The Minister and her Department have been supportive and provided funding and extra resources to work with us, which we are finalising, to strengthen the broadband capacity in the area.

I have spent most of my working life in the private sector as a director of Eircom and know we need investment across the country. I was on the other side of this debate for many years so I know what the issue is. It is the Government's capacity to stimulate investment with the private sector across the country.

A good point was made about the resourcing of sport. We have strongly engaged with the Department over the past while. At the start we all agreed to get the process working and try to understand our oversight and role in terms of SICAP, Leader and the administration of the processes. We made a submission to the Department seeking extra resources for all of the local authorities. The Department put forward a submission in the Estimates for the extra associated funding and some of it has been put into the budgets. We are currently working strongly with the Department on the form of the resource in each local authority and will assist in the decision to have one, two or three people. We hope to close the matter in the coming months.

My final point is about the executive in all of the local authorities. I disagree with the claim made that there are cosy agreements. We generate problems for ourselves with Departments and sometimes with Ministers. In the past I have been vocal about the fact that local authorities have stepped up to the mark, particularly for issues like housing. We have made our case about the areas that we deliver on. We fully respect the fact that we are public servants and are open to challenge. We have a voice and shall continue to be vocal.

In terms of the overall impact on communities, I am genuinely quite positive about the initiative. I am less than three years in local government. The reason I joined local government is because I believe that local government has a great future. I have seen at first hand the impact that elected members can make through LCDCs. I take on board the comments made by members on how to strengthen local government. I ask my colleagues to comment.