Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

Ba mhaith liom buíochas a ghabháil leis na Seanadóirí ar fad a labhair inniu. Ba mhaith liom díriú ar chuid de na ceisteanna a cuireadh.

The CLÁR programme is a top-up programme. Each of the CLÁR areas is entitled to the normal State services and the money associated with them. CLÁR funding is not the sole funding in such areas; it is top-up funding to redress an imbalance that existed in the past. When one considers the programme in that way, one can get some measure of the impact of CLÁR. As I said earlier, the programme has been in existence for two years and I have a certainty in respect of capital for a further five years. We have proven that the ratio of leverage funding is about 1:1. This means that approximately €180 million will be available in CLÁR areas, in addition to what they would have been given over a seven-year period. The approach has been tried and tested. We used it in the Gaeltacht and the islands, to good effect, and we are using it in the CLÁR areas. We are using the same procedure with a sum of money that is available in the RAPID areas. The reaction from the area implementation teams in the RAPID areas is positive. They want the money to be spent in a non-bureaucratic and simple way.

I would like to speak about how we spend the money. I do not have a huge technical team. It is incredible that the entire programme is run by five officials in my Department. We have stopped trying to re-invent the wheel. We use the existing agencies, which are responsible for various things. Local authorities are responsible for public roads, water and sewerage. My Department does not second-guess what the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism, which is responsible for sports capital grants, will do. If the Department approves a grant in a CLÁR area, my Department automatically provides a fixed percentage top-up. We do not question the decisions of other Departments, as we do not have the competence to do so — it is not our role. All our schemes are based on the premise that we use the existing agencies and top up the money in a focused manner.

Deprivation and disadvantage come in many forms. We must seek to increase the population of CLÁR areas and to examine the lifestyles of people who live in such areas. It is no good to say to somebody who is 70 years of age and living in an isolated house on a bad road that employment will be created in the area some time in the future. Such people want roads to be improved immediately to enable doctors or nurses to come to see them or to allow them to get around the town, if they are mobile. The economy is simply a method by which we deal with deprivation. In many cases, the actual deprivation is the lack of water or the lack of a road.

The CLÁR programme is divided into various segments, some of which, like local improvement scheme roads, deal with the here and now. Everywhere one goes in rural Ireland, one hears complaints from ordinary people about minor roads. They will say that the state of the roads is a major issue, as is the lack of water and sewerage facilities. The provision of such services immediately improves the quality of life of those who are deprived of them. Surely that is what it is all about if we are serious about tackling deprivation. If the economy of such areas was thriving and their population was growing, we would still have to spend money to improve water and sewerage services and road quality.

It is incorrect to state that community organisations are not involved in the CLÁR programme when it is appropriate. There is a special reason that certain companies were chosen to be involved in the Leader programme. Such companies were chosen to deliver the village enhancement scheme, in partnership with the local authorities. They deliver the community grants. If a Leader company decides to give a community group €30,000, for example, subject to certain EU rules, that money is doubled to €60,000 under the CLÁR programme as soon as the proposal is made. Such companies are responsible for making proposals, subject to simple rules that have to be in place because of de minimis and other EU requirements. The system of topping up the sports grant is very much community-based because the original application has to come from a community. Similarly, LIS roads are people-based because applications come from the community. Group water schemes are community-based because every group water scheme has to be set up by a local committee. Local authorities are just facilitators in that process. We are using communities as leaders in all the schemes. We often use existing statutory agencies, where appropriate, to deliver the schemes because it is reasonable to do so.

Economic development is one of the major elements of the CLÁR programme. I said in my opening remarks that we will make an announcement about broadband soon. I know some people have doubts in that regard, but that is fine by me as it is not the first time I have been doubted. When we make the announcement, I hope those who doubt me will have the good grace to say "we doubted you, but actually you have delivered". It has been a slow process. I have to say that it was simpler to deal with the ESB because it is a State monopoly — one could ask the price and get the service. Broadband is on our agenda. We have already pursued a number of broadband projects and we will make a further announcement, on a much wider scale, in the near future.

The ESB three-phase top-up programme was exclusively for industry. It was initiated as a result of an experience that I had many years ago as a young co-op manager in the west of Ireland. The small timber mill I was running did not have sufficient electrical capacity because it had single-phase electricity. The first machine we got was run off the back of a tractor by a PTO, something that would not be acceptable under health and safety regulations nowadays. As the former manager of a small co-op at the back of a mountain, I can state that we were almost unable to get the money to install three-phase electricity. It is lucky for us that Údarás na Gaeltachta gave us a grant towards that basic infrastructural provision. We struggled on in the timber mill — when I left it in 1990, it employed approximately 30 people. It is now run by one of the greatest timber millers I have ever met and has grown to process 300,000 tonnes of timber every year. It is a major industry, which employs 150 people, directly and indirectly. I understand that it is one of the biggest timber mills in the country. It was almost stifled at birth because we were almost unable to acquire three-phase electricity.

When I became Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, I said that many small industries may be unable to make the jump from being micro-industries to meeting their potential to become slightly bigger. I imagined that two or three of them could become major industries in time, but were being prevented from meeting that potential by the fact that a basic piece of infrastructure that is automatically available in every town and city is not available to them or is too highly priced. Having examined the records available to me, I am not sure whether the €18,000 that was spent on the provision of three-phase electricity in County Sligo in 2002 was spent on the companies mentioned by Senator Scanlon and Senator McHugh.