Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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There could equally be governance issues in local government and in Departments regarding waste of money.

I fully agree with the point about capacity building. The better-off communities got better benefits in previous Leader programmes because they had the capacity to deal with the bureaucratic process that is in place. One of the key objectives of the LECP was to deal with this capacity issue. Sadly the capacity to deal with their Leader programme projects on a one-to-one basis has been removed from them. I know the Department has now agreed to staff the community sector. Does the CCMA have a plan to take up that slack to deliver capacity building in communities that clearly do not have the capacity to deal with what they have to deal with? It is fundamental to get all communities on a level playing pitch.

Do the members and does the Department realise the level of commitment the chairs and members of the LCDCs have to make to that process? They need to attend meetings that could take all morning. When it moves from the LCDC to the LAG, it could continue into the afternoon and we have not even dealt with one project at LCDC level at this stage.

The interpretation of European rules in the approval of projects was hard enough when dealing just with Leader and the Department. Every stage that is added in, adds complication to the interpretation of rules. One of the big ones on the last one was voluntary labour where a number of community groups were approved at Leader level and at Department level but when it came down to the funding of the project and drawing down the money, the Department refused to pay voluntary labour on some projects. Some communities have been brave enough to challenge that and have taken it to court, but other communities were left at sea.

I am concerned about that. I am fully behind this but just believe there is too much bureaucracy involved. We need to remove that and get back to the people who are delivering for us.