Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

The Deputy will be aware that my Department operates, either directly or through bodies under its aegis, a wide range of schemes and projects that support rural and urban communities throughout the country. As indicated in my Department's statement of strategy, the key principle underlying our activities is the provision of support that enables communities to identify and address problems in their areas. The purpose across the range of projects and programmes which my Department has inherited and which I have initiated is to provide support to communities in the most appropriate way as they work to shape their futures, address their common goals and achieve their full potential.

Bringing a strong, coherent focus to this area of Government policy has found particular expression in my Department's work to co-ordinate and streamline service delivery at a local level. Arising from the joint ministerial initiative on the review of local and community development structures, the Government agreed a series of measures in January 2004 designed to improve arrangements under which community and local development initiatives are delivered and to improve cohesion and focus across various measures. In the interim, I have overseen the cohesion process, which is informed by the following guiding principles: improving on-the-ground services, streamlining structures so as to avoid overlaps, duplication and undue administrative overheads; and bringing transparency, co-ordination and improved control to the funding and operation of local and community development measures.

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