Aideen Hayden (Labour) | Oireachtas source

There is a need for a change in the way in which our local area partnerships are being funded.There was a protest yesterday outside the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government in which some 300 community workers and their unions, SIPTU and IMPACT, protested about this issue. I have raised it with a couple of political colleagues and noted it has very much gone under the radar. This is because there was no consultation process put in place before the change to the manner of funding was made.

Traditionally, funding for the local area partnerships has gone through the local and community development programme. This is now being changed so funding will fall under the social inclusion and community activation programme. It is administered in a completely different way. What is actually happening is that local area partnerships must now bid for their funding. For example, two very prominent north-side partnerships are actually bidding against each other. This is ridiculous and is very disrespectful to the work of the community area partnerships. I suspect the objective is to force mergers between the various local area partnerships. This fails to recognise the importance of the fact that they are actually community based.

Many of the partnerships are very involved on the front line with adult literacy programmes, homework clubs, community child care, employment activation and many other important initiatives. I ask the Leader, as a matter of urgency, to raise this with the Minister.

The result of the bids process was supposed to have been announced yesterday but has now been put off for a week. The bids that are taking place currently are for projects from 1 April to the end of the year. Aside from the fact that announcing funding on 1 April for projects that are already in place is absolute nonsense, it will mean a significant number of community employees will lose their jobs. That is the bottom line. When the result comes out next week, projects in parts of Dublin with dire unemployment, such as the whole north side, will simply collapse because they cannot be funded.