John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the opportunity to contribute on and support the Bill. I commend the Minister on restructuring the board and giving the House a greater input into how the money is spent and how it is accounted for. That is how it should be not just in respect of this board, but in terms of most boards. The sooner we make the House relevant to their activities, the better it is for democracy and transparency.

Deputy Buttimer has left the House but I thank him for his kind remarks. As with the Deputy, I like the concept of small government and keeping government out of small business as much as is possible or practical. The reform to which he referred was promised in the context of the general election and is welcome. As we get on track, we can introduce similar reforms in other Departments. If they work in favour of the public, transparency and accountability, the sooner we introduce legislation to commence that change, the better.

Deputy Buttimer referred to the past 14 years. It is easy for the Government to point to the various failures of that time. There are bound to be many failures in any 14-year period. We know what they were. However, we need to remember the positives, for example, the RAPID programme and the dormant accounts fund. The latter was positive, in that it spent and distributed moneys to communities. Compared with lottery grants, the smaller amounts distributed by the fund had the greater effect in local communities.

The last general election and the previous local government election brought to light the devastation in communities in my constituency. A number of housing estates had grown marginalised. In one estate in Kilkenny, the unemployment rate was 85%. Central to this issue is the need for good community structures. For example, a good family resource centre can make a significant difference. A community centre in the old sense of the term can also make a significant difference. Many of the family resource centres established in the past 14 years have made positive contributions and have expanded the range of services they provide to their communities. This was made possible by tapping into national lottery grants initially and, more importantly, dormant accounts.

It is not always the case that these accounts have been abandoned by rich people. They are bank accounts that can be reclaimed through this scheme at any time, yet they are important in terms of their positive impact on local communities and services. Given the pot of money that has built up in dormant accounts over the years, it might be no harm for the Minister of State to consider the question of the corporate responsibility of large companies and, to a certain degree, the issue of philanthropy. Although most of the financial institutions are in serious difficulty, some continue to make profits and, along with individuals, may wish to contribute to society in some way. This is a vehicle they could consider using for their contributions. It is well managed and its funds make a positive impact by going directly to the individuals or organisations concerned. It would be worthwhile to involve others in contributing to the dormant accounts fund. If we want to be all-inclusive and citizen centred, those who are well off could be given an opportunity to contribute in this way.

I commend those who have served on boards over the years and I do not refer to anyone personally when I say that the number of quangos has to be dramatically reduced. If boards are necessary, perhaps a single board should cover a range of activities. I am sure that can be provided for legally. The administration of a company could be undertaken through this single board as the quangos are abolished.

The Bill provides that the Houses of the Oireachtas shall have 21 days to debate proposals made by the Minister. I welcome the political commitment to bring decision making power back to this House.

I agree with other speakers that the overly bureaucratic approach taken by Pobal needs to be challenged. Guidelines need to be set out clearly so that the staff of that agency understand not only the need to examine, scrutinise and account for money, but also the need to be less bureaucratic with organisations that deliver within the community. The removal of the board addresses some of the problems which the McCarthy report identified.

At a time of limited money, we need to focus as much as possible on communities that find themselves marginalised in some way. We speak about reskilling and preparing individuals for employment but we must support communities that have experienced unemployment for generations. The children of some families have not seen their parents, or even grandparents, at work for many years. The dormant accounts fund has supported a number of projects which have successfully broken the cycle. We need to recreate that success in other areas that have been badly affected. This is the only way we can restore individuals' dignity and pride in their communities. It will also help them to understand the need to build up their communities for the next generation so that the devastation inflicted on housing estates throughout the country can be repaired.

In the past we looked to FÁS and other agencies to create social employment but the suggestions must now come from the communities themselves. The dormant accounts fund enables us to do that. We will have a greater chance of success if we look to the communities for the projects they want to champion instead of taking a top-down approach. I have seen how successful the community approach can be in the RAPID areas of Kilkenny city. Areas that were once vandalised have been put to positive use by the community. I am familiar with individuals who managed to turn their lives around by participating in education schemes, family resource projects and community centres and are now making a positive contribution to their communities. The focus has to be on rebuilding communities. Anyone who read the book, Bowling Alone, will realise that the processes it describes are starting to reverse because people are becoming more interested in working together to find solutions to their own problems.

I also hope funding will be provided to deal with the growing problem of drug abuse. I never thought I would see families who are well respected in my parish devastated by heroin. Drug abuse was previously associated with the bigger cities but it can now be found in most small urban settlements. The response over the years has not been perfect. Aislinn, which caters for the entire country from its base in Ballyragget in County Kilkenny, runs a deficit every year. It has been hugely successful in using an American model to help individuals break the cycle of drink and drug abuse but at the end of the year it has to raise as much as €100,000 to make ends meet. The Government needs to step in to make it possible for organisations like Aislinn to apply for money to deal with the problem of drug abuse. They should also be given the opportunity to apply for further funding to expand their services in order to deal with the problem before it grows further. There is no funding available at present to deal with the next phase of the problem.

Aislinn is an example of a successful organisation which has always encountered difficulty in raising the funds it requires. The dormant accounts fund could easily be activated to fund this project and others like it. I appeal to the Minister to include sufficient flexibility in his plan to cater for such projects. Aislinn has grown out of the community in response to an extremely serious problem. Drug abuse affects not only the individual with the habit, but also the next generation, the family unit and the community. I have seen too much of it to ignore it.

Another area on which we should focus relates to the community. It relates to youth affairs generally, activity around youth, the funding for those who fall out of the system and are not in education or are only partly in education and who are looking for an alternative means of participating in society and educating themselves and having a positive role. I have mentioned the Fr. McGrath Centre in Kilkenny on numerous occasions. It began as a family resource centre and then delivered a number of information and communications technology projects. It allowed younger people within that marginalised community to skills themselves for school through the homework club, etc., and to become prepared to continue in school such that the majority of those are now completing their leaving certificate examinations which never happened there before. That only became possible through the various grants the centre received from Government and particularly the occasional grant it received from the dormant accounts fund.

While I have made criticism here, the work of Pobal has been positive and proves that the dormant account scheme works. It has a record of funding projects that continue to be successful in their communities. The Bill will not damage that and will make it more cost effective to do business. I hope it will make it less bureaucratic to do business with Pobal and the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government. It will give greater participation to the House in terms of the debate. New and better ideas may emerge in the debate we will have on the plan. In that reforming and inclusive way the Minister might consider the different proposals coming from all sides of the House.

In terms of accountability, I note the outgoing board will make its report, which will come to the Committee of Public Accounts. I look forward to seeing that report, particularly in the light of some of the criticism I have heard in this House concerning the availability of the report itself and regarding the numerous audits that the board seems to have put itself through at some cost.

The general local government fund and any funding for local government should come under the remit of the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General. There should be one auditor and every cent of taxpayers' money should be subject to the Comptroller and Auditor General, including local government. The Minister should consider that reform. The Committee of Public Accounts has asked for it and I believe it is a step that could be taken very quickly in order to restore confidence in the system generally. It would give greater accountability across the system. The Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General along with the Committee of Public Accounts are central to reporting to this House. That is another essential reform at this stage.

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