Martin Ferris (Kerry North-West Limerick, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Once again, I find myself in this Chamber challenging the Fine Gael-Labour Party coalition on its lack of consultation and erosion of democracy. This time we are talking about local development companies and the privatisation of the community sector. The reputation of community development companies in the allocation and administration of Leader programmes is second to none. All of us who have worked with them in locations throughout the country can verify this. Community development companies have 20 years experience and are a real success story.

The Leader projects have been a successful job creation mechanism in rural Ireland. Without them, many rural communities would be destitute at this point. From 2011 to last year, they created nearly 3,000 jobs.

They also assisted more than 6,700 enterprises and supported more than 2,000 tourism initiatives. Villages and communities, which were enhanced one way or another by Leader projects and funding, numbered almost 4,000 in those three years. The model was adapted by other member states in the European Union. It was a valuable tool to combat social exclusion and was a cost-effective job creation mechanism under democratic control of communities. Now we have a tendering process established which will do no more than pit community organisations against each other and leave the way open for yet another way to privatise something. If the profit margin is not thought sufficient, will they just disappear altogether?

The Minister, Deputy Hogan, is the whizz kid of privatisation and here is another example. His plan is to make community development another source of profit for the private sector. Is nothing safe from this drive for profit? Will we see profitability becoming the driving force behind these projects instead of the common good of the community and job creation in rural areas? We now have Irish Water. Remember refuse collection was privatised and there were waivers for old age pensioners and people on low incomes but they are gone. Local development companies are following that. Will child care, community supports for the vulnerable, youth recreation projects and those designed to include those who are excluded from communities disappear? That is a big question and I have no doubt that if we proceed along this route, that is what will happen.

The community-led ethos must be preserved with participants' needs being prioritised over profit. The changes to the way local development is organised will have serious consequences for the community and rural development programmes. Currently, the Leader partnerships, independent non-profit organisations, manage and administer Leader funding for development programmes and they do a damn good job. The planned changes will see the management of funding being transferred from the partnership to local authority-led entities and, as Deputy Stanley said, giving absolute power to county managers. Those of us who have been on county councils have seen good ones and not so good ones. Giving that absolute power to one person is an affront to democracy.

There is also a workers' rights aspect to these measures. If the LCDP is put out to tender, the fear is that it will lead to a race to the bottom, with private companies seeking to undermine pay and conditions with a view to winning tenders and boosting profits. What are the arrangements being put in place for any transfer of employment of workers? Will there be redundancies and, if so, who will pay the redundancy of workers being laid off?

It will also impact on the efficient delivery of the local services, currently run by local development companies. I fully appreciate the invaluable work that companies such as North and East Kerry Development do in supporting local organisations. The likes of North and East Kerry Development should remain the applicant body for Leader and the successor programme to the local and community development programme from this year onwards. I work very closely with it and with its directorship. It does fantastic work and has helped small companies start up. Such companies are far more important to the area I come from and to many areas in Ireland than the IDA.

It is mind-boggling to think that while the European Commission holds Ireland's community-led model as an example to the rest of Europe to follow, our Minister is proposing to replace our example of best practice with the centralised version of which the Commission is so critical. Local development companies should retain their independence and be allowed to continue their brilliant work in our communities.

I do not know if members of the Government are listening to people who live in rural isolated areas. If they were honest and truthful, they would relay to the Minister what I and others on this side of the House have been doing tonight that the way local development companies operate is invaluable to local communities and rural Ireland. To do away with them and to give absolute power to county managers will do an awful disservice to the people who put us here. Will the Government reconsider the road it is going down? Why tamper or do away with something which is working beneficially for everyone?

Deputy Áine Collins is shaking her head but she knows as much as I do, given the areas from which she comes, the value of local development companies, what they have contributed over the past number of years, the number of jobs they have created, the amount of work they do in local communities and the number of small businesses they helped to start up, but all of that will be taken away from them and given to one person as a result of what the Government is proposing.

I ask the Government to reconsider this proposal. In particular, I ask those who call themselves members of the Labour Party to reconsider going down the road of privatisation, although it is nothing new in that they have sold out everything since they went into Government. They will do anything for power. They have given up all the values and principles for which they are supposed to stand. I commend the motion put forward by Deputy Ó Cuív and his party. The removal of the partnerships and the local development companies is a retrograde step.

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