Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The alignment steering group recognised the importance of retaining the bottom-up approach, as do I. In spite of all Deputy Healy-Rae's protestations, there is no intention to remove that approach towards community development. If Deputy Healy-Rae looked at many of the community groups throughout the country, he would have to ask the question why there is a such a divergence in administrative costs between the various groups. In some cases, the administration costs of some of our community development groups is 35% of all the funding going into them. That is not sustainable any longer. It should never have been the case. I want to see those particular costs devoted towards delivering front-line services for local people rather than building up a rather expensive bureaucracy. Substantial public funding is being spent on local and community development programmes. These programmes are not always sufficiently joined up to allow the most effective and efficient delivery of our services.

I assure Deputy Healy-Rae that rural development structures will continue and the community and voluntary sector will also continue to play a very important role in EU programmes, but they will be more aligned with local government in doing so and they will be more co-ordinated in their approach. The bottom-up approach, in spite of what Deputy Healy-Rae might say to the contrary, will continue under this approach.

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