Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We could spend all night arguing whether the changes the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government introduced to the delivery structures of local development companies were needed. We could also argue whether the new system he has introduced will add another layer of bureaucracy to a system which requires fewer structures, not more. When I was Minister, I inherited a strange mishmash of local and community development companies. Not all of the country was covered by the local development companies, LDC, programme and in some areas there were two companies operating. I simplified the system considerably to ensure one company would cover all of the territory of the State, that there would only be 53 companies that would be coterminous and, where suitable, a company’s boundaries would match those of a local authority. We also decided that many services, not only the social inclusion and Leader programmes, such as Tús, the rural social scheme, rural transport and FÁS schemes, could be run by these local companies. The local company would be a one-stop-shop in the delivery of State-funded community services.

The Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government has, however, taken a different route. I accept, reluctantly, that in practical terms with the bringing forward of the legislation the LCDCs, local community development committees, are a reality. However, as the process progresses, it seems to have run into problems which are getting worse. Before we get into a total morass, it is time to stop, particularly the tendering process, and examine the difficulties created. The local authorities do not have the capacity to deliver all of these programmes which means that they will have to sub-contract the work to other companies. The system sees the LCDC making the decision on a Leader programme which will have the Department over it and, in turn, Brussels over it. Where we used to have three layers, we now have four. I accept that this is the way it will proceed and that there is nothing I can say that will change the Minister’s mind. However, I hope he will listen to reasoned argument and, before it is too late, consider making some changes to the delivery of the local and community development programmes.

I believe having one LCDC in some counties is not suitable. For example, should the city and county of Waterford and Limerick have one LCDC? From sheer geography, one would say having one LCDC for County Cork is not suitable. Traditionally, there were problems with the Gaeltacht in County Donegal, including the Inishowen Peninsula which is as large as County Louth. County Mayo was always split. In County Galway, there was one Leader company delivering rural development programmes in all non-Gaeltacht areas west and east of the Corrib. Connemara and the rest of County Galway were as different as any other two counties. One cannot travel from Connemara to the rest of County Galway without passing through another local authority area, either that of Mayo County Council or Galway City Council. The topography and geography are totally different, as well as there being significant linguistic differences between the two. It covers a very large area, from north to south, from Ballinasloe to Slyne Head.

Before the Department proceeded to the tendering process, it should have decided the number of LCDCs there would be and consulted those involved. It was not good enough to allow county council managers or even councillors to decide. For example, there are 30 councillors in east Galway, as opposed to only nine in west Galway, which means that those in the east always have a majority. The Minister should examine the suitability of the arrangements put in place by local authorities. Where they are not suitable and the areas covered are too large, he should inform them to come up with more workable solutions.

There is no better organisation than Pobal for prescriptions and bureaucracy. I understand it has come up with a process whereby one tenders for lots, but no one knows what they are. For example, someone tendering to provide a service in County Dublin might wind up providing it in Tallaght only or in the whole of south County Dublin. However, he or she does not know because no one has decided what the lot should be. This has made the business of tendering incredibly complicated - it is like buying a pig in a poke. I understand various combinations and permutations have to be included in a tender to ensure that when lots are decided, they will fit into the Department’s constructions. It should have been done the other way around. Before the tendering process began, the Department should have decided the areas to be included and it would have been a straight bidding process, not a mind game, as seems to be the case.

Another issue that has arisen is that in some places local authority boundaries do not suit. In the last reorganisation of the programmes I brought most of them within county boundaries. For example, the programme for Ballyhoura is across boundaries. Duhallow is in a mountainous area straddling counties Kerry and Cork.

It is an area with its own clear identity predating the setting up of the counties.

We come then to an issue I have discussed with the Minister and for which he has a certain sympathy, namely, the islands. I am told in the arrangement that is put out - I do not how far the Minister went into the minutiae of this - that in the islands' case it will be up to each county to decide whether the islands can be treated as a group or whether the local authorities will grab the islands, so to speak. If I know anything about local authorities, they will grab anything they can.

Comhar na nOileán has been a successful Leader company and is also the channel through which the funding is given to the island community development partnerships. A special arrangement made was for it because of the particular role in the islands which is not the same as it would be in a town. I understand from the tendering process that it will be difficult for Comhar na nOileán to tender because the criteria are for a much more populous place than the offshore islands. For example, I understand that when it comes to Irish speaking areas, there is no linguistic criterion laid down even though the 20 year strategy for the Irish language is clear that it was meant to be an all-of-Government strategy spanning all proposals from Government and that all Departments, in making proposals, were meant to take the linguistic requirements of Irish speakers in the Gaeltacht into account when drawing up how to provide services to the people.

As I stated at the beginning, I do not want to cry over spilt milk, but I am a person who believes that it is important to try to get a solution that works locally. Of course, there is a temptation for those in back rooms to always want the tidy solution, for example, that county boundaries are sacrosanct, but the person who said that a tidy desk is a sign of a sick mind was not far from the truth because there are many human situations that do not fit the tidy desk syndrome. There is an opportunity here to catch our breath. It has not gone beyond the point of no return. As I stated, I am willing to accept that the local community development committees are in place, with the legislation having been passed by this House, but the tendering process we have entered into is highly flawed. It could lead to unintended results. It is more suitable for large operations which are good at tendering. Such operations might be no good at delivering programmes. Some of the most effective tenderers are not good on the ground or rooted in the community, but they are good in getting through what is becoming an ever complex web in trying to submit a public tender for any service, and I do not think that is what the Minister wants. I would have thought the criteria should include, for example, that the company should be forced to have its headquarters within the functional area in which it will provide the service and that it cannot be effectively an absentee landlord with a big headquarters far removed from the community in which it delivers the service. Of course, the most extreme such case is the islands. If one takes Comhar na nOileán out of the islands, one will destroy an effective company that not only has delivered to islanders in a way that no mainland company will do with the islands as an adjunct, but also has done something that has helped the growth of Dublin and all urban areas, that is, provided service jobs on the islands. It has certainly kept Inis Oírr very much alive. Would it not be an irony, when one thinks about it, if when all this is done we wound up with a situation where, instead of having these companies with their bases in towns such as Athenry and Kanturk, the services, for example, for rural Galway, under the rural development programme were headquartered in Galway city, as is the local authority, robbing the county of the jobs? It would rob the staff in such places as Letterfrack and Kanturk, in the far ends of their county, who have jobs in these companies of their employment. Would that not be a terrible irony that rural development funding would be going in significant measure to urban development rather than to rural development?

I hope that, instead of having a combative two days over this Private Members' motion, the Minister reflects on serious points we are trying to make. I suggest that the Minister would halt the tendering process, that we would return to the pre-tendering process, that we would address the issues I mentioned about deciding how many LCDC areas there will be and what would be suitable in the tender documentation so that it is user-friendly for those who have the practical experience of providing the programmes, that the Minister would refer this to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht for examination, suggestions and consultations before he proceeds with the tendering, and that the current tendering process that does not kick in until 11 July would be suspended until the Oireachtas committee would have a chance to examine the implications of all the proposals and make cogent submissions to the Minister, Deputy Hogan, based on the widespread concern about how this project of his is proceeding.

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