Leader groups to rally over control of community enterprise funding
The dispute relates to the Department of the Environment’s plan to give local authority committees an oversight on Leader fund distribution. The community groups say this centralisation of control runs counter to EU devolution directives.
The push for a Dáil demonstration has come from groups attending Leader group public meetings in the past week. Some 800 people attended an IRD Duhallow meeting on Monday in Newmarket, Co Cork, while around 1,000 were at a similar meeting in Limerick last week.
IRD Duhallow chief executive Maura Walsh said: “This is part of a much bigger agenda to centralise funding into the Department of the Environment. The pull of funding away from rural areas and into the Dublin area has become worse since the downturn.”
Environment Minister Phil Hogan’s proposals will give county managers control over Leader funding distribution. Under the plan, new local community development committees (LCDCs) will oversee the funding choices of Leader groups.
“There are no savings to be made in this transfer of control; the costs will also transfer,” said Maura Walsh. “The administration costs are capped at 20% of the overall budget of each programme. Leader funding amounts to less than 2% of Ireland’s CAP funding. All of this rigmarole over what amounts to petty cash really beggars belief.”
Among those in Newmarket critical of the proposed new LCDCs were IRD Duhallow chairman Cormac Collins, a former Wexford and Cork county manager Noel Dillon, and Jack Roche, a former president of the European Leader Network.
Brendan O’Keeffe, Mary Immaculate College, said the clear message from the meetings around the country is that the people do not want the realignment. However, he said it was unlikely a reversal of the proposed LCDCs was unlikely.
“I would like to see a more balanced regional development strategy. It doesn’t make sense to create councils to oversee Leader funding distribution, when nobody is monitoring bodies such as Fáilte, the IDA and Enterprise Ireland, who have multiples of the Leader budget.”
The Department of the Environment rejected the “unwarranted criticism” regarding changes to Leader funding. It said local councils should be the main vehicle for the delivery of public services at local level — leading economic, social and community development.
“The main objective of alignment is to achieve a more joined-up approach to service delivery at local level and to maximise funding for the delivery of frontline services,” the department stated. “LCDCs will have oversight and planning responsibility for local development and community programmes in their area.”
“The membership of the LCDCs will be based on a partnership model, comprising stakeholders from local government, local development, State agencies and the community sector. Local development companies will also be represented on the LCDCs.”
The department also rejected any suggestion that money from the Rural Development Plan would be used by local authorities for other projects.
The department says its proposals will deliver efficient delivery of services and an oversight which has hitherto been lacking. It says its plan will also reduce the level of duplication and complexity in the local development landscape.
