Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister, Deputy Alan Kelly, and wish him well in his new position. He has taken on a very challenging role. As he is from rural Ireland, I have no doubt that he will ensure the interests of many of the activities in rural areas will be protected. He will be very much aware of the great work being done by various voluntary organisations.

As I am sharing time with my colleague, Senator Susan O'Keeffe, I will be as brief as possible. The facts are well known about the National Collective of Community-based Women's Networks, NCCWN, and the voluntarily managed and led national and local community development programme. The NCCWN has 17 local women's projects, one of which is the north Leitrim women's resource which is the focus of this debate. It has a current budget of €1.3 million and employs staff who engage with almost 37,000 women.

As the Minister is aware, the local and community development programme, LCDP, is to be replaced by the 2015 social inclusion community activation programme, SICAP. The new programme is out to e-tender. However, not all the 17 women's networks have been enabled to participate in a local consortium for the SICAP. Furthermore, disadvantaged women are not named as a target group. Therefore, the work of the network with disadvantaged women is not recognised and does not fit under the programme, at least according to my information. I hope the Minister will be able to reassure the 17 groups but particularly the north Leitrim women's resource.

North Leitrim is an area of very severe economic and social disadvantage. It has a low density population, even within a county that has a low population of 31,000. The bulk of the population is located south or east of Lough Allen, whereas the northern part is much more sparsely populated. As a result, it lacks any type of industrial production and relies to a large extent on tourism, small farmers and the cheque from the European Union. The challenges faced by the Manorhamilton-based group are immense. I understand its severe anxiety in not knowing what will happen to it and its funding in the future. I hope the Minister can provide some reassurance, in view of the very valuable work done by the Manorhamilton group and its sister organisations across the country.