Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I agree with Deputy Bannon that the so-called reform of local government has been a disaster for rural areas. The number of councillors in County Cavan has been reduced from 25 to 18, leaving the county with the same number of councillors as other counties with less than half its population. The Government's decision to abolish town councils was also disgraceful. Moreover, the number of councillors representing less populated areas has declined, leaving large rural areas without any public representative, whether from a political party or an independent.

The core community partnership ethos of community development companies in providing Leader companies must be maintained. Local community development companies have played an important role in supporting local enterprise and providing services nationwide. Government decisions are leading to the dismantling of local decision making in the statutory and community sectors.

Local development companies have been in place for upwards of 20 years. Their origins lie in the original 12 employment partnerships, the pilot areas for the first Leader programme, integrated resource development, IRD, groups and the subsequent extension of these programmes in the period from 1994 to 1999. Subsequent restructuring processes resulted in a reduction in the number of companies through amalgamations and the integration of the former community development programme into this structure. This was a welcome development as the Leader programme evolved.

In all of that time, the local development companies have continued to provide a range of valuable services to their local communities, whether in the rural context through the delivery of the Leader programme, which has been successfully rolled out throughout rural areas by the local development companies, or in the local and community development programme, which targets disadvantage wherever it is found and has, particularly in this round, focused its response on the unemployed and people on low incomes generally.

Local development companies also provide a range of services to the Department of Social Protection, focusing on those who are hardest to reach and, by definition, in most need of assistance. The Tús initiative works with unemployed people in all areas of the State, providing them with valuable employment and skills retention opportunities, while enabling them to undertake worthwhile work in local communities. Up to 7,500 people are engaged in this activity at any time.

The local development companies contribute to local economies in many different ways, for example, through enterprise and other development work via the Leader programme, which provides grant aid for bottom up development initiatives in the community and business sectors of the local economy. This is enhanced through the local and community development programme which promotes learning, training, job-seeking skills and supports unemployed people to become self-employed. Last year alone in my county, Breffni Integrated Limited recorded 132 fully completed business start-ups, which were fully established and registered tax compliant businesses with research and written business plans. Local development companies are also significant local employers, providing employment to close to 2,000 people in the sector nationally in addition to those participating in employment schemes. In County Cavan, for instance, almost 300 people are employed under the auspices of Breffni Integrated Limited.

Despite embracing the alignment process, local development companies have been frustrated by the lack of real engagement or progress made during their participation. I recall a meeting with representatives of the Monaghan and Cavan integrated development groups last August, at which they expressed serious frustration at the lack of consultation by the Minister and Department in the new alignment process. Local development companies have significant concerns about the process. It appears, for example, that it is not necessary under European Union regulations due to the nature of the work concerned regarding tendering. Furthermore, recently supplied information indicates that each county is to be treated as one lot for tendering purposes, despite some local development companies in larger urban and rural counties covering only part of their respective counties. Notwithstanding extensive and ongoing participation at national level and the processes in place to progress the alignment process, the local development companies have not been able to establish the role intended for them in Leader programme delivery in the period from 2015 onwards. The position of the local development companies remains that they are the local action groups.

It is important to compliment all those who have served on local development companies since their establishment in the 1990s. The companies are managed by voluntary boards, which have come together at the behest of the Government to deliver a range of programmes. They have standard memorandums and articles of association, which have been prescribed by government and can only be changed with the prior approval of the Minister. It is important to maintain the continuity and successful structures of programmes that have been shown to work. I refer, in particular, to the Cavan-Monaghan Leader programme and the Monaghan and Breffni integrated companies.

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