Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Ó Cuív for giving us the opportunity to discuss this issue. There is no need for us to be kicking this around the place, so to speak. Everybody on all sides of the House agrees with the phenomenal success of the community development sector since 1991, when the then Commissioner, Mr. Ray MacSharry, initially rolled out the Leader model which has developed into many other community delivery projects. The reason he rolled it out in that fashion then is as relevant today as it was in the early 1990s. I refer to the disconnect we witnessed again two weeks ago between the public and institutions, such as this House and local authorities. That disconnect has in many ways damaged the sense of community, meitheal and entrepreneurship in the same way now as it did back then.

The various Leader and community development companies managed to get around that because they were connected to and based in the community and their staff were of the community. The Leader programme and the various development programmes sparked a sense of enterprise, social cohesion and ambition within communities that otherwise would have been lost. If we continue to go the way the Minister is going with these proposed plans, I fear we will lose that enterprise, cohesion and ambition.

One of the difficulties in community and local development is that it is basically an alphabet nightmare, with, for example, LDPs and LCDCs. However, there is one project which stands out as a testament to the faith and trust in these programmes, that is, the Great Western Greenway. Last year, 200,000 people used that greenway, from Westport through to Achill, either walking or cycling. A number of landowners got involved, giving away their land to support that project, and that could not have happened without the trust in the rural social scheme operated by South West Mayo Development. The trust on the ground encouraged landowners to get involved in the project. The ability and acumen of the staff of South West Mayo Development and the ambition of their board, all of whom are from that community, for that project ensured there was innovation and there was a dream. It ensured that right along the greenway there are products, services and jobs that otherwise would not have been there. Mayo County Council was a fantastic partner in that project. Nobody takes away from its contribution, but the trust on the ground, the sense of ownership and the dream and ambition of the greenway belongs to South West Mayo Development in a way one does not get with a large local authority in a county the physical size of Mayo.

Through these new programmes, with the local community development committee, that trust will be lost.

The local board, which runs the development company, will be replaced by the LCDC which will have as many people on a countywide board as are currently on a local board.

The Minister has expressed frustration, and he has cause to be worried, about the burden of administration within some of these companies, as well as the financial issues, but local authorities are not necessarily in the best financial health to be held up as a model of propriety either.

We need to ensure that the work done to date will not be lost. I agree with Deputy Ó Cuív's proposal to draw back from this and try to give the consultation period one chance to ensure that people on the ground are in agreement with this going forward. If this matter proceeds in the way the Minister is currently going, it will be without local buy-in, input or support. The whole notion of local development would then be catastrophically undermined.

In a recent article in theIrish Examiner, the Minister said he was not privatising community services. He said these services were never undertaken by the public sector but by private local development companies. I have gone through the structure of many such companies with boards which, through articles of association, have to be drawn from various community organisations. They are community trusts and community-based companies, not private ones.

As Deputy Ó Cuív said, there is a danger in the tendering process that without that community basis, companies will tender but will not be able to deliver the service. There is a difference between preparing a tendering document and having the ability to deliver a service. Local development companies the length and breadth of this island are blessed with the quality of their staff's commitment and contribution. They are so blessed that the Irish model of local development is now put forward as European best practice. Representatives of recent EU accession countries are being brought here to see how local development is being undertaken at a time when we are about to destroy that very model by bringing it back in under the auspices of a local authority whereby that localism is lost.

The Minister said we are not going to lose that community involvement but I have gone through the proposed set up and we will lose it. The notion of having community representatives involved, as opposed to elected representatives - there is a difference - will be lost. The ability of that community trust which is so important in so many projects will also be lost through the broader local authority structure.

Can the Minister clarify the tendering process? I presume it is correct that the current development companies will be allowed to tender, but what other companies will be allowed to tender? Will private service companies, although not even in the county and perhaps based in Dublin or in another EU state, be able to put together a tendering document developing and delivering services remotely? Could such companies usurp the very model the Minister is trying to protect? What will be in the tendering process to protect a service provider's local integrity?

I know the Minister is constricted by EU tendering rules, but someone somewhere will have to stand up to them. Perhaps the Minister will get a chance later in the year to stand up to an EU tendering model that is so anti small companies, be they community ones or small and medium enterprises. If the Minister gets the chance to do that around the European Commission table he will have done a great service. Now is his chance to start by saying "No".

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