Pat Carey (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)

I thank Deputy McEllistrim for raising this important matter. The community development programme was established in 1990 in recognition of the role of community development in tackling the causes and effects of poverty and disadvantage. The programme is one of a number of programmes operated by my Department as it seeks to enable communities identify and address issues in their areas. Central to this approach is the involvement of members of the community working together in assessing needs and identifying the changes necessary to improve conditions and making such changes happen.

Approximately 182 community development projects and organisations are funded under the programme at a cost of €24 million in 2007. These projects and organisations are located in recognised disadvantaged urban and rural areas across the country. Projects are expected to operate as a resource for the communities in which they are located. In general, projects are concerned with the needs of women and children, lone parent families, the unemployed, the elderly, young people at risk, Travellers, those with disabilities, new communities and other disadvantaged groups. They provide facilities such as meeting rooms, crèches, office facilities and training or education projects designed to meet the needs of disadvantaged groups in these communities.

Projects are funded on a multi-annual contract basis to employ development staff and to cover the costs of overheads and administration. Posts covered under the programme include co-ordinators, development workers and administrators. Projects are encouraged to use the funding provided by the programme as seed funding to attract other funding and resources in responding to the community's identified needs.

As Deputy McEllistrim said, the Kerry Network of People with Disabilities, KPwDI, is one of 30 such networks which together form the national organisation known as People with Disabilities in Ireland, PwDI. PwDI received funding in the region of €1.4 million in 2007 from the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform to support its activities and those of its network members. The network's primary aim is to promote the human, civil, social, economic, political, cultural and recreational rights and freedoms of people with disabilities. The Kerry branch of the network is unique in that it is the only one of the 30 networks nationally that receives funding under the community development programme of my Department. KPwDI was established by local volunteers in 1996 following the publication of the report of the Commission on the Status of People with Disabilities. At that stage the network was part of the Irish Council of People with Disabilities, ICPD. The Kerry network's catchment area is all of County Kerry, as Deputy McEllistrim pointed out.

The project has been funded as a core-funded group within the community development programme since 2001. In 2007, my Department provided €57,500 in core funding to meet the salary cost of one full-time community development worker and certain administrative expenses. In addition to the community development worker, there are a number of other staff employed within the project, namely two part-time finance administration workers funded by the HSE and three community employment workers seconded to the project from Partnership Trá Lí.

In May 2007, the board of management of the project submitted a request to my Department for additional funding to meet the cost of employing a full time co-ordinator within the project. While acknowledging the excellent work being undertaken within the project, my Department did not recommend that additional staff resources be funded pending the outcome of a review of elements of the programme and the introduction of new programme arrangements for the period to the end of 2013. I expect that a new strategic framework for this programme will be put in place in early 2008 and the provision of additional resources to projects such as this one will be considered in that context.

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