Gildernew's attempt to divert RDP funds to GAA condemned
01 March 2011
TUV Leader Jim Allister has accused the Agriculture Minister of seeking to divert the flow of scarce Rural Development Funds away from their proper target and towards the GAA.
Following a meeting with the GAA, Minister Gildernew encouraged the organisation to access RDP funds under the guise of ‘community activities’. Responding, Jim Allister said, “I’m sure I will not be alone in expressing dismay that under a tight RDP budget, notoriously mismanaged to date, the DARD minister should go out of her way, in a blatantly partisan manner, to encourage the channeling of rural development funds to the GAA. I don’t note any such exhortation towards the Orange Order, which has as good credentials in community activities as the GAA.
“Axis 3 of RDP exists to facilitate such matters as farm diversification, business development, tourism activities, village renewal and conservation of the rural heritage. For the Minister to introduce partisan promotion of the GAA as somehow a body suited to obtain such funds is, in my view, not just electioneering but a cavalier disregard to meeting the real needs of rural communities.
“The GAA is already heavily endowed with government funding, to which the DUP Minister DCAL Minister is about to add another £50m for stadium development, without enrichment through RDP funding.
“It is highly regrettable that the minister has politicised RDP funding in this way.”
