John Moloney (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

I apologise again for the Minister's absence. The Deputy will recall that the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs was established against a background of concern at the multiplicity of structures and agencies through which local and community development schemes and programmes are delivered. The Department inherited many local and community programmes that were established and operated under different Departments. There was an inherent danger of fragmentation of services and diffusion of resources. The cohesion process initiated by the Minister to address these concerns resulted in a dramatic reduction and simplification of local delivery structures for a range of rural development and community development programmes.

The Department still has a wide agenda of reform to advance. The next phase, now under way, concerns improving and joining up the outputs from programmes, as well as further consolidating structures. The local development social inclusion programme, LDSIP, and community development programme, CDP, are the Department's two main social inclusion-community development programmes. Both have a community development element and are delivered through separate local delivery structures.

The Minister of State, Deputy John Curran, has indicated that his strong view is that a single focused programme with a single integrated delivery structure is needed to maximise the impact of these two programmes which serve disadvantaged communities. The Centre for Effective Services is preparing proposals for the Minister in this regard, which will draw on good international practice and independent advice. The Minister hopes to receive these proposals in the near future with a view to rolling out a new programme early next year.

The Minister's overall aim is to ensure that, from 2010, disadvantaged communities will benefit from a more focused programme with clear objectives and simplified and streamlined delivery structures, leading to significant administrative savings and impact efficiencies. In advance of proceeding to establish a single programme across community development projects and partnerships, the Department has initiated an evaluation of individual CDPs. Many of these projects span two decades with diverse activities. The Minister hopes to have proposals from his Department in the near future.

The Minister envisages that the main elements of the new integrated programme will comprise a small number of unambiguous goals to be achieved through clearly articulated outcomes for disadvantaged communities. Continuous evaluation and measurable targets will also be key features of the new programme, which the Minister hopes to launch for early 2010. While he cannot be specific at this stage about the impact on specific bodies in particular areas, disadvantaged communities will benefit from a more focused programme with clear objectives and simplified and streamlined delivery structures.

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