CEDRA: Central role for local authorities key in economic development of rural areas

No additional expenditure, and a central role for local authorities, are among the recommendations brought back by Pat Spillane to Environment Minister Phil Hogan and Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney, who appointed him in September 2012 to oversee the report of the Commission for the Economic Development of Rural Areas (CEDRA).

The first of 34 recommendations of the CEDRA group chaired by Spillane is that a junior minister should have specific responsibility in the Government for rural development.

The CEDRA team has produced new and in some cases surprising statistics about what has been happening in rural Ireland over the past 20 years of boom and bust.