Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)

I welcome the interest of the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs in local economic and social development and the future of Partnership, Leader and other local companies. As a board member of the Northside Partnership in Bunratty Drive, Coolock, Dublin 17, I was disappointed and taken aback with the changes in the guidelines on the governance of integrated local development companies and urban based partnerships lodged in the non-statutory list of regulations in the Oireachtas library last week. This disappointment and unease is shared by other members and supporters of the Northside Partnership in the Dublin North-East and Dublin North-Central constituencies.

Our key concerns relate to the changes to the board structures given the importance of boards to the administration of successful and fully accountable companies. The cutback in the number of directors to be nominated by the national social partners to only two directors out of 20 in an urban company is a retrograde step, given the long-standing excellent support from local businesses and the trade union movement for the Northside Partnership and similar companies.

Throughout its history of approximately two decades the Northside Partnership has been well served by a succession of volunteer directors from the north side business community who brought unique expertise and experience to the outstanding development of the company and its innovative programmes. I am proud to recall that it was Peter Cassells, formerly general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions who proposed the idea of partnership companies to the then Taoiseach, Charles Haughey, in 1990. Mr. Cassells and his trade union colleagues have always played an important role in promoting local development through partnership and other local community companies.

For most of its history, Northside Partnership was expertly chaired by Mr. Padraig White, the distinguished former public servant and entrepreneur. At present Mr. Willie Hamilton of Mandate Trade Union is efficiently carrying on Mr. White's great work for Coolock and the north side community. The two three-year term limits proposed for directors seems ludicrous given the exemplary service and expertise of experienced volunteers to the progress of Northside Partnership and similar companies. This restriction will impact most heavily on companies such as Northside Partnership where a dynamic chairperson is prepared to give freely of his or her time to develop projects which may take a decade or more to come to fruition.

The banning of Oireachtas Members from service on the boards is also shortsighted and unnecessary. Several Oireachtas Members like myself have been active prior to and throughout their political careers in support of local social and economic development. On the Northside Partnership board I admired the service given over recent years by former Senator Derek McDowell and Deputy Seán Haughey, now a Minister of State. It is reasonable to require Ministers to resign from boards but why disbar an ordinary Oireachtas Member who wishes to serve as a volunteer?

These and other board changes were not necessary for the Northside Partnership and the vast bulk of other local development companies. I understand some of the motives which informed the Minister's decisions. Northside Partnership has always followed the highest company and accountancy standards under our highly impressive CEO, Ms Marion Vickers, and her outstanding staff. Northside Partnership pioneered a wide range of seminal small business start-up, training and employment programmes including the local employment service, the challenger, life and other learning programmes, the local business network, the enterprise and employment development programme and the child care bureau.

I understand the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Deputy Ó Cuív, and the Department setting out model corporate governance guidelines for local development companies. However, in this and in his earlier guidelines on social economy companies, the Minister also caused grief. He threatens to eviscerate the dynamic and progressive character of local development bodies. Experience in the UK, the Netherlands, Spain, France, Germany and elsewhere has shown that these companies need to have an efficient commercial as well as social development structure. The result of the Minister's bureaucratic approach will be to reduce these bodies to mere aspirational talking shops.

The Minister appears to be a determined opponent of true co-operative entrepreneurial structures in urban areas and I urge him to strongly reflect on the history of Northside Partnership and similar local bodies, such as those in Connemara, before these non-statutory guidelines are finalised. Is he prepared to refer the guidelines to the Oireachtas Committee on Arts, Sports, Tourism, Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs?

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