I welcome the Minister back to the Seanad. I am delighted you are with us in this capacity.
Adjournment Matters. - Submission for LEADER II Funding.
May I give a few minutes of my time to Senator Rory Kiely?
Is that agreed? Agreed.
I welcome the Minister to the House and congratulate him on his appointment. I know he is very suitable for this position. He knows the problems of rural Ireland intimately as he comes from a rural area. I know he will do excellent work, his appointment to the position was an excellent choice. I am sure he remembers the time he was on this side of the House doing something similar to what I am now doing.
My motion for the Adjournment asks the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Forestry to include the submission by West Limerick Resources under LEADER II funding.
West Limerick is a natural, unspoiled, rural area of approximately 520 square miles with a population of 52,000. It is bounded on the north by the Shannon Estuary and on the south by the Mullaghareirk Mountains. In general farm holdings are small, around 20 to 50 acres, with an average milk quota for all West Limerick of about 18,000 gallons of milk, dairying being the main occupation of farmers. This has resulted in low incomes and severe under-employment. Tourism is under-developed in West Limerick with the area generally viewed as a "passed through" route with an insufficient base west of Adare village. The 1986-91 census period showed an overall decline in population of 2,500 in the smaller towns and villages. This has resulted in village dereliction and a decline of parish structures.
West Limerick Resources was incorporated as a company in 1993 and originated as the West Limerick development project in 1991. The organisation has identified an area of particular problem between the N21 road and the Mullaghareirk Mountains and between the N21 and N69 routes. The small villages and parishes of this area are suffering particular social deprivation. Soils are poor for conventional farming. Milk production has declined greatly in these areas and afforestation is proceeding in a rampant and often haphazard manner. The consequences are areas of increased rural isolation, with some homes now being practically surrounded by blocks of woodland.
The programme proposes to maximise the existing tourism product and further develop the west Limerick tourism infrastructure to achieve maximum economic development through extensive marketing and pro-active innovation strategies in all areas of tourism. It is proposed to create a cultural environment conducive to the growth of existing and new business enterprise and entrepreneurship in west Limerick. These endeavours will contribute towards creating new employment in all sectors, improving local skills, developing local businesses and expanding the local community. The programme will stabilise and maintain the rural sector and will ensure the long term viability of rural communities in a rapidly changing agricultural sector to combat under-employment and exploit the natural advantage of the estuary and rivers in west Limerick.
The programme aims to enhance the awareness of the heritage and culture of the area by focusing on historical sites, buildings, traditional music and dance, the performing and visual arts, collection of traditional folklore and landscape heritage. An important aspect of the plan is to improve the physical structure and services and so create an environment to address the stagnation of growth in towns and villages and reverse the loss of population in rural areas. The programme, when implemented, aims to initiate transnational linkages exploiting existing twinning arrangements in west Limerick with areas of other EU member states. It will also support and participate in regional transnational initiatives in co-operation with Shannon Development.
With its application for LEADER II funding, West Limerick Resources submitted detailed strategies which it aims to bring into effect during the next four years, the objectives of which are set out. The principal objectives of the programmes set out are to maintain and strengthen the community fabric in the area, to improve the quality of life, to diversify the local economy so as to provide greater employment opportunity, and to provide income, thus creating the basis for a viable self-sustaining community with strong population generation. They also seek to encourage local initiatives and urge communities in different towns, villages and areas to improve and develop their own areas, to act as a co-ordinating focus for the various initiatives at local level as well as for possible future developments in west Limerick, and to act in a facilitating role to provide much needed access to economic and social development of a material and guidance nature.
The total estimated cost of the proposed measure is £6.586 million, with £2.117 million coming from private sources, £761.500 coming from public sources such as county enterprise board schemes, Shannon Development schemes, county council village renewal schemes and so on. The proposed contribution from LEADER is $3.707 million. The measure will create the following jobs: 160 full-time jobs, 200 part-time jobs, 130 indirect jobs and 200 temporary jobs during construction — a total in all of 690 jobs. I would ask the Minister to consider favourably this vital programme under LEADER II which will reverse the decline in the area in which I live.
I would like to thank Senator Neville for giving me a few minutes of his time. I congratulate the Minister on his appointment. He is a former colleague of mine and we served for a little over four years in the Seanad together. We knew one another before that through another organisation. I am delighted to see him here. He is very familiar with west Limerick as he lives close by.
I support Senator Neville in calling on the Minister to include the submission by West Limerick Resources under LEADER II funding. I live adjacent to the Duhallow region which has already benefited from the LEADER programme. Funding is urgently needed by the West Limerick Resources group which has a great programme and policies as outlined recently at a meeting in Newcastlewest. I would appeal to the Minister, as Senator Neville has done, to include the submission. Senator Neville was good at raising matters on the Adjournment when he was in Opposition.
He is starting very well.
He is starting very well, and I have a feeling that he has raised this with a view to getting good news from the Minister.
It gives me great pleasure to be back in this House as a junior Minister. I served my apprenticeship in the Seanad and spent some enjoyable years here in the company of Senators Kiely and Fallon. I have great respect for this House and its Members. At times I feel that you do not get the recognition, attention and credit for the important business that is transacted here. I hope the Seanad will be elevated and recognised for its importance.
I thank Senator Neville for raising this matter. I should point out that over the past two weeks both Deputy Michael Finucane and Senator Kelly requested me to meet with this group and I hope to meet with them as soon as possible. I recognise that Senator Rory Kiely also expressed his personal interest in this submission to me over the past few weeks. Collectively, the representatives of west Limerick are very interested and supportive of the submission.
At the outset I would like to assure Senator Neville of my commitment to the LEADER programme and my recognition of the major contribution which the programme has made in rural Ireland. I am well aware of the problems of rural areas generally. In recent times, both here and throughout Europe, the rural areas have been marked by a continuing decline in the importance of agriculture in the rural economy and in the numbers employed there, depopulation of many rural areas and fragmentation of the rural economy.
As this House knows, the last few years have seen unprecedented changes in the political and economic landscape of Europe. Here and in other parts of the EU where agriculture plays a vital economic role, the reform of the CAP has had a marked impact on our rural areas and their capacity for development. The new GATT agreement, bringing as it does increased competition, will be a further contribution to economic change. The enlargement of the EU on 1 January last and the virtual certainty of further enlargement in time, provide not only another source of market competition but increased demand for the available resources to implement structural and other EU policies.
In the past rural development policy was virtually synonymous with agricultural policy. However, against the background I have painted, the task of the EU and national governments is to devise and implement programmes that enable the rural community to thrive and prosper. Significant progress has been made. In the last round of Structural Funds, my Department implemented an operational programme for rural development which, among other things, contained measures for encouraging farm diversification, agri-tourism and the promotion of small and community enterprises. There was also, of course, the LEADER I programme under which 16 local groups were aided to implement business plans devised by them and whose areas covered about half the country. Some £35 million of public funding, including £21 million from the EU, has been used to good effect over the past three years or so by these groups, coupled with a similar amount in private investment.
The independent evaluation of the programme indicated that LEADER had been successful in terms of achievement of its objectives, the enormous commitment of board members, support structures and local communities, the dedication and enthusiasm of its management, the positive and constructive relationship between the groups and my Department and the support and participation of the State agencies and local authorities.
In the new round of Structural Funds now under way, my Department's operational programme for agriculture, rural development and forestry contains further measures in support of farm diversification. Rural development will of course also benefit significantly from other mainstream operational programmes, including those relating to tourism, industry, economic infrastructure and local urban and rural development.
The LEADER programme will continue to play a central role in Government's rural development policy and substantially increased funding will be available for the new LEADER round. The EU has already committed funding of £54 million and this will be topped up with a significant national Exchequer contribution. We are well advanced in our preparations.
The operational programme for the implementation of LEADER II throughout the country has been submitted to the European Commission for approval and negotiations are well advanced. In the meantime with the assistance of independent consultants I am evaluating the 48 business plans of the applicant groups including the application from West Limerick Resources Limited. I hope to be in a position to make announcements about the successful groups in the next six to eight weeks.
I thank both Senator Neville and Senator Kiely for raising this matter tonight and presenting the argument very forcibly and constructively. I am confident that a very effective and productive LEADER programme will be put in place in west Limerick.
The Seanad adjourned at 8.30 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 26 January 1995.