Pat Carey (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)

I propose to take Questions Nos. 10 and 11 together.

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 to improve arrangements under which community and local development initiatives are delivered and to improve cohesion and focus across various measures. This process is informed by the following guiding principles: improving on the ground services; streamlining structures so as to avoid overlaps, duplication and undue administrative overheads; bringing transparency, co-ordination and improved control to the funding and operation of local and community development measures; and strengthening the democratic accountability of agencies and providers in this area.

The core objective of the process is to simplify and improve local delivery of programmes operated by my Department through the integration and alignment of local delivery structures. In line with the commitment in the programme for Government, the intention is that for the future, there will be one local development company in any given area and fewer local development companies overall. The new arrangements will provide full county coverage and enable communities to more readily access services and make maximum use of the funding available.

Following an extensive consultation phase, the Government decided on revised areas of coverage for local development groups and clarified the arrangements in respect of the membership of the boards of these bodies last year. Leader and partnership groups have been asked to give effect to these decisions and my Department has provided detailed guidelines to secure this outcome. The realignment of local delivery structures will reduce the overall number of local development bodies from 94 to 55, comprising 17 partnerships in urban areas and 38 integrated Leader-partnership bodies in rural areas.

My intention is to have the cohesion process completed in advance of the roll out of the new NDP programmes, including the Leader programme and the local development social inclusion programme. At this stage, local development bodies are in place in 53 of the 55 operational areas agreed by the Government. In respect of the islands, a new integrated structure was incorporated on 8 November 2007.

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