Current proposals from Minister Phil Hogan and his Department will totally undermine the LEADER model of community-led local development and will wipe out meaningful community and voluntary involvement in the sector.
That is according to Marian Harkin MEP who attended a meeting between LEADER groups and MEPs in Brussels earlier this week.
“The current proposals being pursued by Minister Hogan will wipe out 20 years of experience in the planning and delivery of national and EU local development programmes,” the Independent MEP argued, adding, “It will sideline the community and voluntary sector, reducing their role to mere bit players in community development. This amounts to nothing less than a power grab to further centralise and control decision-making.”
According to Ms Harkin the fancy name for this new process is alignment, but she says it is really a takeover, transferring local delivery of LEADER funds to boards nominated under the auspices of the local authority and county manager.
“The reason for this is that local authorities are strapped for cash, and I believe this is seen as an opportunity to use the EU as a mechanism to help fund local authority approved projects rather than an investment in community and in citizens,” said Ms Harkin.
She agreed that local authorities provide very valuable functions despite having being sidelined consistently by central government which has also refused to adequately finance their programmes.
But Ms Harkin said her disagreement is not with local authorities but with a centralised Department which wants to see the “politicians' fingerprints on every cent of EU money”.
“Virtually all EU money goes through the Department of Finance where it is channelled into national programmes. However, the Commission and Parliament strongly intend for a small proportion of this money to go directly to the community and voluntary sector so that they can be involved in improving their communities and quality of life.
“The crazy thing is that the current Irish system is seen as a model of best practice at European level. The European Court of Auditors has endorsed it, the European Commission supports it, yet we are about to change it.
“In this the European Year of Citizens, it makes a mockery of citizens to take this structure away, and all under the heading 'putting people first,” the Ireland North and West MEP concluded.
