“Stand up and fight”
IN a heavy hitting speech, Jack Roche said what has happened to the Leader funding is “shameful” and is nothing short of scandalous example of what is happening to rural Ireland.
At the IRD Duhallow, AGM he said there is now a situation where “17 steps have to be gone through” with every application for funding, whereas previously it was only four.
He said the Leader programme has been “butchered, dismantled and taken apart by politicians who don’t know the first thing about what they are doing.”
He strongly pointed out that in the last Leader Programme there was funding to the tune of €12 million but for the current programme there is €2 million.
After the meeting, he told The Corkman that it is now simply a case of “bureaucracy gone mad.”
He explained in the past when a community group wanted a project they would apply for planning and come up with the 25% payment themselves, and then the other 75% of the project would be sanctioned.
But now, planning must be in place as well as the 25% payment but, yet, there is “absolutely no guarantee that the rest of the 75% commitment will be forthcoming.”
“What I am seeing is that very well organised groups are getting the funding but for those who are less organised they can very quickly run out of steam as, let’s not forget, there are 17 steps to be followed. This whole and entire process is acting as a deterrent,” he said.
He said the feeling at IRD Duhallow is that they will “stand up and fight” to get back their programme.
“You don’t have to be a mathematical genius to work out that trying to organise projects on a budget of €2 million compared to €12 million is severely difficult,” he said.
It is his fear that community projects will close and won’t take place.
“We are only struggling along and there has been redundancies in the past and it’s my fear there will be more of them,” he said.
He said: “It’s very hard to get through to politicians as I don’t think they understand it. At the end of the day, the only thing that will bring about change is communities talking up for themselves, talking to their politicans and their councillors and TDs and hopefully they will take some sort of action.”
Mr Roche pointed out that, “nothing is ever won from weakness and it’s time that rural communities showed a bit of gut, and stand up and say we’re having no more of this.”