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SEMINAR REPORT

Citizenship Engagement and Rural Communities,

September 2016 Longford Women’s Link

The challenges facing rural communities, new

local authority structures and the centralised

nature of Irish policy were some of the themes

discussed at a seminar jointly organised by

Longford Women’s Manifesto Group and Irish

Rural Link on Sept. 30th 2016 at LWL.

Sheila Reilly, Iconic Newspapers; Louise Lennon, IRL; Tom Lavin, IRL Board member; Tara Farrell, Deputy CEO, Longford Women’s Link/IRL Board Member.

The seminar provided an opportunity for the

voluntary, community and statutory sectors to

reflect on the impacts of the reforms in local

government, particularly in terms of citizenship

engagement.

Deputy CEO of LWL, Tara Farrell referred in her

introduction to the unique dominance of our

capital city, stating that Dublin has 40 per cent

of the State’s population, and that its output

represents half of the Irish gross domestic

product. Outside city states such as Singapore,

this is unique in the western world and these

growing regional disparities are a cause of

concern as we look at how our local decision-

making structures are operating.

Louise Lennon, Irish Rural Link’s Policy Officer

outlined current rural development initiatives:

Rural Development Programme (2014-2020)

which has funding of up to €3.9b.

Towns & Villages Renewal Scheme under

which local authorities are each allocated

€380,000 to fund improvements in car parks,

leisure facilities and shop fronts.

The challenges facing rural communities were

summarised as being: rural isolation, the

increasing older population, the decline in towns

and villages, poor transport and broadband

infrastructure.

PPNs still ‘under construction’

A key challenge for community groups is

grappling with new structures at local government

level, mainly the PPNs (Public Participation

Networks). Sara Bourke, Social Justice Ireland,

gave an overview of PPNs. Acknowledging the

complexity of the structures she said they are

starting to work in practice but many are still

‘under construction’.

Siobhan Cronogue, Longford PPN; Nóirín Clancy, LWMG; Sara Bourke, Social Justice Ireland; Denise Feeney, Galway County Council.

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Representatives are engaging at Municipal

District level and are playing key roles on local

authority committees and drawing up Local

Economic and Community Plans. While the

majority have resource workers, Sara

emphasised the importance of capacity building

and continuous supports for volunteers. She

highlighted the challenges of managing the

logistics, the demands of participating at the

different levels and the lack of resources for

research and policy development.

A panel of speakers, chaired by Sheila Reilly,

Group Head Digital, Iconic Newspapers, shared

mixed views regarding PPNs; some saying it was

difficult to get new people involved, highlighting

the confusing structures and the danger of

‘volunteer fatigue’. Tess Murphy described how

monthly meetings with Longford Women’s

Manifesto Group support her in being a

representative on committees, stating how difficult

it would be to participate without having supports

in place.

Tess Murphy, LWMG; Martin Lydon, Roscommon County Council; Nuala Haughey, TASC; Denise Feeney, Galway County Council; Fiona McCaffrey Jones, Monaghan Women’s Network.

The key role of the resource worker was

emphasised in facilitating feedback from the

various structures and organising meetings at

Municipal District level. Denise Feeney, Galway

County Council, said no dedicated PPN worker

has been recruited due to funding issues, instead

limited support is provided by council staff. Denise

said many still don’t understand the PPN

structures and find the language off-putting since

it’s not ‘community friendly’. Fiona McCaffrey

Jones, Monaghan Women’s Network, spoke of

how the Network managed to secure a place on

the PPN Secretariat for the women’s sector.

Some felt that LCDCs (Local Community

Development Committees) are working well since

they are new structures for everyone involved.

Ailish Irvine, Mayo PPN; Siobhan Cronogue, Longford PPN; Denise Feeney, Galway County Council; Brenda McNicholas, Roscommon PPN

Martin Lydon, Roscommon County Council

commented on the valuable contribution PPN

representatives bring to the LCDC, stating that it

was representatives from the

community/voluntary sector who recognised that

aspects of SICAP (Social Inclusion Community

Activation Programme) were not relevant to

Roscommon. Martin said LCDC members don’t

realise the decision-making powers they have,

emphasising that trust has to exist within such

groups. In Roscommon the LCDC decided who

got the Towns team funding which prepared

people for the responsibility.

Gender balance on committees

The issue of gender balance on LCDCs and

SPCs was raised. - Martin Lydon stated that

Roscommon County Council now has a rule that

when vacancies become available on

committees, groups must nominate a woman and

a man. Sara Bourke said it’s not known what the

gender balance on LCDC and SPCs are but it’s a

piece of research that needs to be undertaken.

Interestingly, in her presentation Sara noted that

98% of PPN Resource Workers are female while

women account for 35% of the membership of

Secretariats.

I want the Ireland of five years’ time to be a place

where decision-making belongs to women as much

as it belongs to men’ - Frances Fitzgerald (Tánaiste)

Address at International Conference on Women

and Leadership in a Changing World at QUB, 2016

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New ways of working

Fiona McCaffrey Jones highlighted the challenges

for both sectors - the community and local

authorities – in managing the changes since both

come from very different operational methods and

agendas.

Martin Lydon, Roscommon County Council; Denise Feeney, Galway County Council; Tom Lavin, IRL

Martin emphasised that if we want transparency

we have to accept that the traditional way of

working e.g. using local councillors is no longer

valid, but instead work through committee

structures, which should reflect transparency.

Denise refers people to proper contacts e.g.

those with housing issues are directed to the

housing section, not the local councillor.

Therefore a change in thinking is required and a

dependency on relationships, although this exists,

is not ideal.

Sara Bourke summarised the key challenges for

councils: building an understanding of

participation across all divisions; fostering creative

community engagement; developing “participation

friendly” structures with PPNs and being open to

co-creation rather than consultation. There was

agreement that much depends on how meetings

are run - the chairing, scheduling of meetings and

receiving documents well in advance. It was

suggested to have more chairs from the

community sector. Also, it is essential that council

staff and elected representatives should

participate in training, which at present is seen to

be a requirement for the voluntary sector only.

Centralised nature of Irish policy

A key issue raised was the centralised nature of

Irish policy making, questioning how much power

there is within the remit of local authority

committees since policy-making in Ireland is so

centralised. Nuala Haughey, Project Manager of

the OPEN Government initiative with TASC which

supports democratic accountability stated that

‘policy-making is done at a theoretical level and is

Dublin-centric’. She referred to the current

Housing Bill which is by-passing councils. Martin

Lydon commented that ‘policies are often devised

by those with no experience of how local

authorities work’.

Nuala reiterated the challenges for both sectors

since they speak different languages and urged

groups to ‘tool-up’, referring to TASC’s, ‘A Toolkit

to Open Government’ which will help groups

understand how policy is made and where the

power lies. The recently organised consultation

process for the Open Government Partnership’s

second National Action Plan was cited as an

example of Dublin-centric nature of policy making

– three consultations were organised, two in

Dublin and one in Kilkenny.

LWL are a community partner of the An Cosán

Virtual Community College, delivering the QQI

Level 7 Special Purpose Award in Citizenship and

Social Action – for more details contact LWL on

043 3341511 or An Cosán VCC on 01 534 1847

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Seminar Recommendations

Chairperson, Sheila Reilly asked panel members what success looked like in terms of structures

working well and the following points were made:

Consistency and transparency – Organisations need to provide feedback to the department as to

what is working. If departments use a traffic light system for decisions this helps transparency as

people can see how decisions are made.

Trust is key and needs to be built up on all committees between all stakeholders

Funding needs to be committed to recruit PPN Resource Workers in all counties

Voices need to be heard and seen to be heard – volunteers need to see results.

Sharing good practice saves time and resources

PPNs need to feed into real policy and decision-making which leads to real change for

communities.

Engage people locally – in their own areas

Make the language more user-friendly. Watch our use of jargon and acronyms

Make it mandatory to have information online regarding all council meetings, agendas, minutes

etc. All councils follow the example of Roscommon County Council and start planning to webcast

council meetings.

Start going to observe meetings of your council at county and Municipal District level – a great way

to learn how local government works! Ring your own council to find out about accessing meetings.

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In 2015, LWMG launched a report:

‘Making our Councils more open, transparent and accountable’

Available on Longford Women’s Link website: www.lwl.ie

Rather than submit to cynicism and disillusion, we must rekindle our conviction that people and communities have a

deep and instinctive desire to work for social and political participation and transformation. …… Much is at stake

when citizens are reduced to the status of passive recipients of policy and services – NI Roundtable on Wellbeing

For further information on the Women’s Manifesto Programme please contact LWL on 0433341511 or email

tarafarrell@lwl.ie