David Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

They would work in partnership with local government but would not be dictated to by local government. What the Minister is doing is taking power away from local communities and giving it to officials in local authorities. The previous Government started the process and the Government is continuing with the same logic - surprise, surprise. The vast majority of people whom I meet who work in the community development sector agree with what I say because they have suffered as a consequence of it. Volunteers on the ground are no longer available because they are not valued by the Government. That is the reality. They always feared that would happen; that they would be pushed under the control of some arm of Government and their autonomy would be removed from them. While it might be a good thing in some respects that there is a community element to the plan the Minister completely ignores the reality on the ground for the vast majority of community development projects and the people who work in them.