Child Centre delayed by Hogan Halt

The start of work on the new Community Childcare and Education Centre, which had been expected to begin last month, has been suspended because of a Government embargo on approval of new projects, writes Brian Byrne.

In a statement, the organising committee of the €600,000 project says the delay could be 'several months'.

"It's a huge blow," says Orla O'Neill, who spearheaded the efforts of the committee over the last two years, but she is adamant that the project 'will go ahead'. She also said they were surprised that the project had been affected by the embargo, as it had been agreed in principle before the end of 2012. "It was only when I took the unusual step last week of contacting the Department directly that I realised we had been misinformed."

Leader funding of €365,000 towards the project was approved by the County Kildare Leader Partnership in December, and last month the approval was confirmed by the CKLP board. The grant was awaiting confirmation by the Department of Finance, which oversees the distribution of Leader funds across the country.

Tenders for the project had been evaluated, and a local contractor has already been selected for the project.

A health and safety briefing meeting was held during March, in preparation for beginning work on the site, close to the current community playgroup premises at the back of Kilcullen Community Complex. Naomh Bríde playgroup, which has operated since the 1970s, had expected that they could move to the new Centre in September.

However, it transpires that, in February, Environment Minister Phil Hogan placed an embargo on the final approval of new projects funded by Leader, pending a review of the Department of the Environment budget for the Rural Development Programme.

This has led to major disruption of funding for projects and festivals throughout Ireland. Under pressure from Fianna Fail, the minister agreed last month to lift the embargo, but to date has not done so.

Up to €100m of Leader funding still has to be spent before the end of this year, or it will be lost back to Europe, which provides 85 percent of the total.

The Childcare Centre committee has called on all local people to contact their Councillors and TDs to express how they feel about the situation.

The matter is a severe blow to the morale of the local community and particularly to those who had worked so hard to regenerate the project, which previously collapsed at the end of 2010 because of local difficulties over leases.

Unrelated Information: According to reports in the Irish Independent, Minister Hogan and officials from his Department have spent €133,000 in travelling to conferences in Shanghai, Rio de Janeiro, Durban in South Africa and Nairobi in Kenya, as well as New York, Paris and Rome. And our diplomats have managed to retain their spending habits.