Minutes of KilkennyCounty Development Board Meeting held at ParadeTower, Kilkenny on the 25th of April, 2006

Present:Cllr. Catherine Connery (Cathaoirleach), Cllr. Maurice Shortall,

Cllr. Pat Dunphy, Cllr. Seán Ó Hargáin, Mick Cummins,

Martin Rafter, Ronan Mulhall, Loretta O’Driscoll, Phil Funchion, Tony Whelan, Declan Murphy, Michael Dee, Eileen Curtis, Celine McHugh, Sean McKeown, Seamus Phelan, David Culliton, Yvonne Moriarity, Martin Carroll, Breda McDonald

In Attendance: Tony Walsh, Bríd Hynes, Ronan Ryan, Lindsey Butler

1. Apologies:Declan Rice, Fr. Nicholas Flavin, Rodger Curran,

Cllr. Bobby Aylward, Michael Malone, Cllr. Anne Phelan

2. Minutes

Minutes of meeting of the 25th of February were adopted on the proposal of Ronan Mulhall and seconded by Michael Dee.

3.Matters Arising

There were no matters arising

4. Items for decision- reports from Working Groups

The Chairperson proposed to take action 1 and item 5 (Position paper on Cohesion) and a letter from Joe Allen from the DEHLG under correspondence together as they all deal with the Cohesion Process.

Action 1: Cohesion

Tony Walsh outlined that the correspondence from the DEHLG asked the CDB to submit a position paper on the Cohesion process with an agreed cohesion strategy agreed by the CDB for submission to the DEHLG by April 28, 2006.

Martin Rafter then outlined the current position and circulated a summary report. He highlighted to the board that the 3 boards of management of BNS, KCAN and CDCDN were all meeting on Thursday to sign off on the submission.

The proposal identifies 2 structures – 1 for the city and 1 for the county. Martin asked the board to support the application as well as to support BNS continuing in areas outlined in South Tipperary as an appendix to the application.

The application was endorsed on the proposal of Tony Whelan and seconded by Eileen Curtis.

Board members then complimented the agencies for their work in preparing the cohesion plan.

Action 2: 3rd Level provision

Report from Sean McKeown – Sean circulated a report and outlined the position of the implementation group to date.

The implementation group will actively engage with WIT in support of their campaign for the USE and will co-operate with the revamped Steering Committee of the NUI Maynooth outreach campus.

The question of engagement with Carlow IT and St. Patrick’s College Carlow was discussed.

Ronan Mulhall stated that he will have to abstain form any board backing in relation to this action as the DES position has not changed. This was accepted by the board.

Action 3: Community Enterprise

Report from Sean McKeown – Sean circulated a report and outlined the position of the implementation group to date.

It was agreed to circulate Tipperary Institutes final report to the board.

Martin Carroll acknowledged the hard work that Mary McEvoy put into Castlecomer. The board expressed well wishes to Mary in her new post. The board agreed a letter would be written to Mary expressing appreciation and best wishes for the future.

Action4: Community Safety

*Supt Mangan was not present to give a report on the Community Safety Working group. Tony informed the board that the group did meet on April 20th. Cllr. Seán ÓhArgáin attended the meeting and outlined the main elements of the discussion as information sharing with a view that the next meeting would focus in on identifying actions for implementation.

*In relation to the convenor of the working groups not being available to report to the CDB, it was identified that a fall back person needs to be identified to give the report. This person must be a CDB member.

Cllr. O’hÁrgáin requested that sufficient advance notice be given in respect of all CDB related meetings and suggested that this should be at least one week.

Action 5: Education

Ronan Mulhall gave a verbal report outlining the outcomes of the meeting held on April 20th. The Working group was small and it is hoped that the membership will develop over the next few meetings. The group agreed the following:

To identify 3 small scale projects under the headings of Access, Progression and Transition. There may also be a need for some further work looking at co-ordination and planning of training at city and county level.

Action 6: Targeted Youth Plan

Bríd gave a verbal report on the work of the Youth Co-ordinating Committee in progressing the action. The committee is being facilitated to identify an approach that meets the needs of all members in relation to moving forward in delivering on the Integrated Youth Plan. The group meet bi-monthly.

Action 7: Renewable Energy

A report from Declan Rice was circulated- a plan of action is envisioned for the next meeting. This refers to action 9 also Rural Tourism.

Action 8: Accessibility Audit

Tony Whelan outlined that the group had not convened for a number of reasons.

There are 11 groups involved with the action Tony islooking for a co-chair to help convene the working group. He then outlined the HSE’s position in relation to undertaking an accessibility audit. The HSE has set up a technical group to audit their own buildings and he suggested that the11 agencies involved with the action should do the same. A meeting will be convened by the end of June with a view that the 11 groups involved with the action will have done the ground work in relation to auditing their own buildings.

Tony Whelan was asked to sound out CDB members involved with the action to identify a possible co-chair for the action group before the next CBD meeting.

5. Items for information

RAPID

Ronan Ryan gave a presentation on the RAPID Strategic Plan and circulated same.

The lack of youth facilities is highlighted as part of the RAPID strategic Plan; many agencies endorsed this fact. The HSE is interested in developing a Youth at Risk Project utilising the interagency approach of the Youth Co-ordinating Committee.

ClÁR

Tony Walshgave a presentation on CLÁR and outlined that CLÁR has been extended to Kilkenny –please see presentation included.

It was highlighted that a member of the public was harassing some of the CDB members coming to the meeting. T Walsh asked that members bring any incidents of this nature to the C&E Section so we can deal with the incidents appropriately.

6. Correspondence:

Interagency Co-operation in the Delivery of Services and Supports to the Traveller Community –

A Government circular outlining priority area for CDB’s. It was agreed that improved co-ordination and cohesion is needed in the area and the roles of the different agencies also needs defining and discussion.

It was mentioned that the agencies and groups involved with Traveller services need to be drawn together to identify what is going on- but no further discussion ensued as to who or when this should be done.

Letter form Kilkenny Contact-

This letter was looking for clarification from the CDB as to whether the Older Persons Network was still a priority area for the CDB to support. The HSE are the lead agency for this action and was being supported by their Older Persons Co-ordinator- Ann Sheehan. Ann has since resigned and the group has not met since September 2005.

Tony Whelan had left the meeting so was not in a position to inform he group of their plans for future support of this group. Tony Walsh agreed to contact Tony Whelan to see whether the HSE is in a position to support the group in the short term with a view that when the new Cohesion structures are in place they may be in a position to support this network.

8. AOB

Cllr. Shortall informed the group that it was his last meeting. He thanked the board for their efforts. He also said he had enjoyed his time on the board and learned much from his participation at board level.

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CATHAOIRLEACH DATE