Please see Pat the Cope Gallagher, MEP address on Alignment. Dear Members of ILDN, It is not cynical political rhetoric to say that I have a strong interest in the delivery of local development programmes in Ireland, and in particular in the LEADER Programme. It is a matter of public record that when I served as Minister for State for the Marine and the Gaeltacht, I was directly involved in the design of the structures for delivering the first, pilot LEADER Programme in Ireland. I believed then that the most effective delivery model for rural local development was through independent local development companies whose Board structures and decision-making processes involved the Community and Voluntary Sector, the Social Partners and relevant State Agencies. I acknowledge that the Local Elected Representatives Sector has been added in the interim and I have no objection to the participation of that sector. The “bottom-up approach” of local development incorporating strong and active direct participation by representatives from local communities is at the heart of the LEADER development ethos. I believed that that was the best model when the pilot was being rolled out. I have no hesitation in saying that I believe that still. It is actually easy for me to confirm that belief because, you, the local development companies delivering programmes such as LEADER, the Local and Community Development Programme and the host of other “leveraged” programmes that you manage have been independently evaluated by the likes of the EU audit teams, the Centre for Effective Services, and POBAL etc. have confirmed that this model is the most effective and efficient system for delivering local development supports. In the face of those independent evaluations I see only one reason to change that model and that is to improve it. I don’t know any politician or citizen who would disagree with Minister Hogan’s objective of improving support services to the public and communities in Ireland. But I firmly disagree with the notion that his proposals are an improvement on the LEADER development delivery model. They clearly add layers of administration and bureaucracy with the introduction of the Local and Community Development Committee. They place the remit for development planning not in the sphere of the local development companies who have designed and delivered on such plans for two decades but instead confer it on a committee, which, face it, has not met or worked one day yet. This is a firm example of removing responsibilities from skilled, highly experienced professionals and placing them in inexperience committees. If we are to have this debate freely, then the notion of considering whether the Local and Community Development Committees will act for, and address the needs of, local communities or will use the financial resources allocated to them to address the priorities of the local authority. The experience of the PEACE Programme in the border areas demonstrates that over the lifetime of delivery of that programme, the participation and consideration of the needs of local communities greatly reduced over time with that programme and actions substituting funding for local authority initiated projects dominated. I expect that the same pattern will emerge in the local development delivery structure proposed by Minister Hogan. This begs the question of who is being served by this form of local development. Is it the communities or the local authority? In closing, let me state clearly that I am firmly in support of the retention of the existing model of local development structures by independent local development companies built along the Irish Social Partnership model. I do not support the structures proposed to replace them. I also call for the provision of an “Interim Fund” programme to support the on-going excellent work of the local development companies between the current round of LEADER funds and the subsequent round of LEADER as was always the case under Fíanna Fáil governments Mise le meas, Pat the Cope Gallagher, MEP.
Posted on: Thu, 13 Mar 2014 16:53:22 +0000
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