Pat Moylan (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister to the House and wish him well in his Department. A number of people have expressed their concern to me about the expansion of the West Offaly Integrated Development Partnership's area of operation as part of the LDSIP, to include Birr and south Offaly. The West Offaly Integrated Development Partnership became operational in 1996 as one of the three local development operations in Offaly, the others being Tullamore Wider Options and the Offaly and Kildare Partnership or OAK.

As the name suggests, the area of operation under the local development was to the west of the county while OAK primarily served the northern part of the county and Tullamore Wider Options became operational within the town of Tullamore. Sections of the county, most notably Meath-Offaly and south Offaly, were not covered by the local development programme.

Offaly is divided into four electoral areas. The area about which I am concerned is south-west Offaly. In 2000, ADM, with the sanction of the Department of Tourism, Sport and Recreation, agreed to the extension of the partnership's boundaries to encompass the remainder of the Ferbane electoral area. This meant an increase in the size of the area from 22 DEDs to 29, and an increase in the population base from approximately 10,500 to almost 14,000, based on 1996 statistics. The inclusion of the remainder of the Birr electoral area was not approved at that time as ADM's view was that the extension to cover the complete Birr electoral area would need detailed consultation and have further financial implications.

In 2001, an informal multi-agency group began working in partnership to identify options for addressing the lack of local development infrastructure in the south Offaly area. With funding secured from FÁS, this group has succeeded in putting in place a one-year pre-development initiative in the Birr area of south Offaly. The once-off funding from FÁS has enabled the appointment of a full-time development worker whose brief entails community needs analysis and strategic planning. As such, the detailed consultation referred to as a pre-requisite of further boundary extension can be regarded as under way.

My proposals set out a case for the inclusion of the remaining 83% of the Birr electoral area as part of the local development social inclusion programme, which inclusion would involve an extension to the boundaries of the development partnership's area of operation.

The people who will benefit most from the extension and those who benefited most from the west Offaly development include lone parents, long-term unemployed, disadvantaged women, people with low levels of educational attainment, families living in local authority housing or housing provided through other public housing schemes, people living in isolated rural areas, rural smallholders, disadvantaged children and young people, older people, early school leavers, Travellers and disabled people. The work being done by West Offaly Integrated Development Partnership with rural smallholders has been outstanding. Quite a number of small farmers have said to me that they would have sold out were it not for this work.

I thank the Cathaoirleach for affording me the opportunity to raise this matter on the Adjournment and I look forward to a favourable reply from the Minister.