LEADER groups take fight to EU
Faced by a transfer of crucial powers to socio-economic committees in Environment Minister Phil Hogan’s Putting People First policy, the groups and their national representational body, the Irish Local Development Network, met Irish and European MEPs and officials in Brussels last Tuesday, hosted by Ireland South MEP Phil Prendergast and Ireland North-West MEP Jim Higgins.
Ms Prendergast said, “Local development companies in Ireland are facing an existential crisis with savage cuts to funding and severe limitations on resources generally.
“The minister’s proposals as they are currently outlined in the Putting People First document would represent the final nail in the coffin for local development in Ireland. It is for this reason that the companies are ‘following the money’ so-to-speak and asking for the European Union to intervene to prevent the destruction of the Irish model for local development.
“They have enjoyed cross-party support here in the European Parliament where regardless of political affiliation, MEPs are singing from the same hymn sheet on this issue. We are not against reform, but we are absolutely opposed to bad reform where this will disenfranchise local communities.”
“The proposed reforms would strip LEADER of their core planning and decision making functions,” MEP Jim Higgins said. “A huge part of LEADER’s success lies in its ‘bottom up’ approach which allows volunteers and champions of local communities to implement local development programmes that work.
“Transferring LEADER competencies to local authorities at a time when local authorities are already over stretched is far from wise.”
Minister Hogan has said establishment of socio-economic committees which will take responsibility for local development is under way. They will include public and private partners drawn from the local and community development sectors, civil society, local authorities and relevant state agencies.
They will be established in up to 10 local authority areas in the coming weeks, with a full roll-out across remaining local authority areas to commence in the autumn.
