Carmel Fox grew up on the family’s mixed farm near Castlelyons in Co Cork. A purebred Friesian herd, seed potatoes and poultry were the main farming enterprises.
“There was an incentive to have your own calf or turkey, but with the cost of purchase and feed taken out, so there was never much profit,” she says ruefully.
Primary school was in Castlelyons, which operated as a gaelscoil before its time, and from there Carmel went to the Presentation sisters in Crosshaven, where all subjects were also taught through Irish. Heading to boarding school didn’t bother her as she’d been going to Irish college at Trabolgan for two weeks every summer since she was eight. St Martha’s in Navan followed, which Carmel describes as a most wonderful year.
“The staff gave us an opportunity to find ourselves. We were trusted with responsibility.”
From there she went to the Munster Institute and completed a diploma in farm home management.
“This course appealed to me as I knew I wanted to work with people and I was familiar with the role of the advisers coming to our farm and home. The course gave us skills in accessing information and delivering adult education for farm families and giving them the knowledge to make comparisons and choices.”
A year as an adviser with ACOT in Dunmanway, at a time when farms were being well developed with piped water in the yard but quite a few had only a cold tap in the house, was followed by a move to Mallow and then to Moorepark, where Carmel was appointed the regional socio economic specialist for Cork, Kerry and Limerick.
The focus of her work back then – financial management for the farm and household, generation of additional income and succession planning – is equally as relevant today.
In the meantime, Carmel had married Jim and moved to a dairy and beef farm in Glenroe, Co Limerick, from where she was able to commute to work.
“With the merger of the An Foras Talúntais and ACOT to form Teagasc, I was concerned about where I’d be based. There’d been a tradition that staff working in rural development were based in Athenry and that didn’t suit me. I accepted a job with Ballyhoura Fáilte. That was 1988 and it was a one-year contract.”
Trailblazing
Ballyhoura Fáilte was established in 1986 and in early 1988 completed a review of its work. It brought together its members – the tourism providers and the five communities in its catchment – with statutory groups to explain what it had been doing and to look for guidance.
The decision was made to develop a multi-sectoral plan and to find the resources to employ someone to lead the plan. Carmel was that person.
“I started work from a room in Kilfinane education centre. I recall a great sense of possibility. But it was also a challenge. I had gone from having a strong support structure to doing everything myself. So having a strong board and planning committee really mattered. That committee became the first board of Ballyhoura Development.”
In 1990, LEADER was being talked about and Ballyhoura seemed perfectly poised to bid for it.
“We had the cross-sector mix, including enterprise, community and public bodies, on our board and we had a multi-sectoral plan. The area we operated in covered the same area as the tourism co-op and straddled two counties natural to the development of the area. We bid for LEADER and got it. It was €1.9m and covered the period 1992-1994. It was amazing.”
Since then, Ballyhoura, which straddles a very rural area around east Limerick and north Cork, has become a trailblazing model for LEADER, but it is worth recalling where the communities that made up its catchment were back then.
Prior to submitting the bid for LEADER, only three identified a project they wanted to do. There was a real challenge with the lack of entrepreneurship in the area and also with the need for regeneration of towns and villages.
In Kilfinane alone, there were 38 derelict sites. Today, 50 communities have action plans, multiple projects and there’s just three derelict sites in main street Kilfinane.
In the past six years, Ballyhoura Development has delivered €40m worth of public funding, and this doesn’t take account of leveraged funding that comes from community or entrepreneurial enterprise. It operates not just LEADER but also SICAP TUS, RSS, Local Training Initiatives and a Jobs’ Club, to name but a few.
Legacy of LEADER
“For me, it’s the organisational strength that gave communities the capacity to improve the quality of life and deliver renewal in their communities. In our area, social enterprises alone have an annual turnover of €50m and employ over 1,500 people.
“Ballyhoura has become an internationally recognised rural tourism destination, with an income of €45m per annum from tourism, supporting 1,650 jobs.
“It’s an area that attracts major outdoor events, such as the European Cross Country MTB Championship 2014 and the final of the European Adventure Race Series 2015
“Entrepreneurial capacity and the growth of over 70 artisan food processors and the Taste of Ballyhoura food brand is another legacy. As is the expansion of the creative sector – design, arts, crafts, audio and more – the progress made in the growth of renewable energy businesses and the 100+ sole traders that have started diverse businesses … there’s a series of articles in this alone,” says Carmel.
Stormy weather
Carmel Fox is very clear when she says the two key programmes that give Ballyhoura Development its capacity are LEADER and the social inclusion programme (SICAP).
“Our sustainability and capacity is really challenged by the unclear outcome that may emerge from the current LEADER process.”
Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly has ordered the Local Community Development Committees (LCDCs), which are part of the local authority (LA) structure, to submit an expression of interest in delivering the LEADER programme. On 20 January last, he stated in the Dail: “It unquestionably remains Government policy that each LCDC will apply under the new LEADER programme, they are required to do so.”
He also said: “The regulatory framework for the LEADER elements of the RDP requires an open and transparent selection process.”
Carmel asks how, and says there is scope to do this as a joint bid, as has been encouraged by senior EU officials.
“The board of Ballyhoura has decided to submit an expression of interest, but it could be a joint bid. However, we can only move to put in a joint submission with an LCDC if they work with us to do so.”
The closing date for submissions of interest is 15 May.
Heads of agreement are being drafted in some counties and various options are being considered. So, yes, some more clarity is emerging, but how soon will the draft service level agreements that underpin discussions be available? Most LDCs will be submitting expressions of interest without full knowledge.
Ministers Kelly and Phelan announced county allocations (to 28 LCDC areas) of €220m LEADER funding to 2020. They retained €30m for artisan foods, rural economic development zones and cooperation projects.
Carmel is unhappy with the funding and is surprised by how little reaction there has been to this from the national bodies representing rural communities.
“It’s being reduced from 10% to 7% of Pillar II of RDP. The Government could have held or increased on the 10%.
“In addition, Ireland reduced co-financing to that 7% (to 35%), something they didn’t do to the other 93% (co-financed at 46%) and the result is that LEADER funding is now €250m – down from €370 million in the last programme.
“Given the need for rural economic renewal, an increase of co-financing by Government to at least 46% would deliver a win-win situation, bringing the programme to €298millon.”
The decision on the LEADER bids is expected to be made within two months and then there’s up to six months for groups to prepare the local development strategy and submit it. So, it will be late autumn at best before the next LEADER programme gets underway.
“The EU is watching the process and, in light of the successful delivery of past programmes, it would be difficult to visualise that the existing LEADER companies wouldn’t have the capacity to succeed in an expression of interest.
“Given the level of fog, there is a risk of a change, from truly bottom-up structures determining the strategy to a committee of the local authority, which has been recently established to mirror the structure of Local Development Companies such as Ballyhoura Development.
“Whatever the outcome, we need to remember that LEADER is about bottom-up rural development.” CL
FACT BOX
• Family: married to Jim and lives on a dairy and beef farm.• Hobbies: I love amateur drama along with musicals and street theatre. I pretend to play golf.• Reads: I knocked a real kick out of Hanging with the Elephants by Michael Harding. I enjoyed the insights in The Accidental Entrepreneur by Gerry Murphy (of Churchtown renewal fame) which tells the story around the development of Great Gas.• TV/cinema: Raw is a great drama series and I also like to watch current affairs, documentaries and music.• Influences: I think my parents and a lot of the people I work with. Sr Vincent in Navan was visually impaired and an inspirational woman. My colleagues are amazing, as are so many of the people who’ve been on the boards I’ve worked with.• Style: Smart casual. I’m not a shopper and buy locally, usually when I’m somewhere for another reason.• Memorable moment: It’s the small ones that get me, like when someone shifts attitude, or like this call from a community chairman last week. He was excited about what he’d learned during a visit to another community – seeing what they’d achieved.
Carmel Fox grew up on the family’s mixed farm near Castlelyons in Co Cork. A purebred Friesian herd, seed potatoes and poultry were the main farming enterprises.
“There was an incentive to have your own calf or turkey, but with the cost of purchase and feed taken out, so there was never much profit,” she says ruefully.
Primary school was in Castlelyons, which operated as a gaelscoil before its time, and from there Carmel went to the Presentation sisters in Crosshaven, where all subjects were also taught through Irish. Heading to boarding school didn’t bother her as she’d been going to Irish college at Trabolgan for two weeks every summer since she was eight. St Martha’s in Navan followed, which Carmel describes as a most wonderful year.
“The staff gave us an opportunity to find ourselves. We were trusted with responsibility.”
From there she went to the Munster Institute and completed a diploma in farm home management.
“This course appealed to me as I knew I wanted to work with people and I was familiar with the role of the advisers coming to our farm and home. The course gave us skills in accessing information and delivering adult education for farm families and giving them the knowledge to make comparisons and choices.”
A year as an adviser with ACOT in Dunmanway, at a time when farms were being well developed with piped water in the yard but quite a few had only a cold tap in the house, was followed by a move to Mallow and then to Moorepark, where Carmel was appointed the regional socio economic specialist for Cork, Kerry and Limerick.
The focus of her work back then – financial management for the farm and household, generation of additional income and succession planning – is equally as relevant today.
In the meantime, Carmel had married Jim and moved to a dairy and beef farm in Glenroe, Co Limerick, from where she was able to commute to work.
“With the merger of the An Foras Talúntais and ACOT to form Teagasc, I was concerned about where I’d be based. There’d been a tradition that staff working in rural development were based in Athenry and that didn’t suit me. I accepted a job with Ballyhoura Fáilte. That was 1988 and it was a one-year contract.”
Trailblazing
Ballyhoura Fáilte was established in 1986 and in early 1988 completed a review of its work. It brought together its members – the tourism providers and the five communities in its catchment – with statutory groups to explain what it had been doing and to look for guidance.
The decision was made to develop a multi-sectoral plan and to find the resources to employ someone to lead the plan. Carmel was that person.
“I started work from a room in Kilfinane education centre. I recall a great sense of possibility. But it was also a challenge. I had gone from having a strong support structure to doing everything myself. So having a strong board and planning committee really mattered. That committee became the first board of Ballyhoura Development.”
In 1990, LEADER was being talked about and Ballyhoura seemed perfectly poised to bid for it.
“We had the cross-sector mix, including enterprise, community and public bodies, on our board and we had a multi-sectoral plan. The area we operated in covered the same area as the tourism co-op and straddled two counties natural to the development of the area. We bid for LEADER and got it. It was €1.9m and covered the period 1992-1994. It was amazing.”
Since then, Ballyhoura, which straddles a very rural area around east Limerick and north Cork, has become a trailblazing model for LEADER, but it is worth recalling where the communities that made up its catchment were back then.
Prior to submitting the bid for LEADER, only three identified a project they wanted to do. There was a real challenge with the lack of entrepreneurship in the area and also with the need for regeneration of towns and villages.
In Kilfinane alone, there were 38 derelict sites. Today, 50 communities have action plans, multiple projects and there’s just three derelict sites in main street Kilfinane.
In the past six years, Ballyhoura Development has delivered €40m worth of public funding, and this doesn’t take account of leveraged funding that comes from community or entrepreneurial enterprise. It operates not just LEADER but also SICAP TUS, RSS, Local Training Initiatives and a Jobs’ Club, to name but a few.
Legacy of LEADER
“For me, it’s the organisational strength that gave communities the capacity to improve the quality of life and deliver renewal in their communities. In our area, social enterprises alone have an annual turnover of €50m and employ over 1,500 people.
“Ballyhoura has become an internationally recognised rural tourism destination, with an income of €45m per annum from tourism, supporting 1,650 jobs.
“It’s an area that attracts major outdoor events, such as the European Cross Country MTB Championship 2014 and the final of the European Adventure Race Series 2015
“Entrepreneurial capacity and the growth of over 70 artisan food processors and the Taste of Ballyhoura food brand is another legacy. As is the expansion of the creative sector – design, arts, crafts, audio and more – the progress made in the growth of renewable energy businesses and the 100+ sole traders that have started diverse businesses … there’s a series of articles in this alone,” says Carmel.
Stormy weather
Carmel Fox is very clear when she says the two key programmes that give Ballyhoura Development its capacity are LEADER and the social inclusion programme (SICAP).
“Our sustainability and capacity is really challenged by the unclear outcome that may emerge from the current LEADER process.”
Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly has ordered the Local Community Development Committees (LCDCs), which are part of the local authority (LA) structure, to submit an expression of interest in delivering the LEADER programme. On 20 January last, he stated in the Dail: “It unquestionably remains Government policy that each LCDC will apply under the new LEADER programme, they are required to do so.”
He also said: “The regulatory framework for the LEADER elements of the RDP requires an open and transparent selection process.”
Carmel asks how, and says there is scope to do this as a joint bid, as has been encouraged by senior EU officials.
“The board of Ballyhoura has decided to submit an expression of interest, but it could be a joint bid. However, we can only move to put in a joint submission with an LCDC if they work with us to do so.”
The closing date for submissions of interest is 15 May.
Heads of agreement are being drafted in some counties and various options are being considered. So, yes, some more clarity is emerging, but how soon will the draft service level agreements that underpin discussions be available? Most LDCs will be submitting expressions of interest without full knowledge.
Ministers Kelly and Phelan announced county allocations (to 28 LCDC areas) of €220m LEADER funding to 2020. They retained €30m for artisan foods, rural economic development zones and cooperation projects.
Carmel is unhappy with the funding and is surprised by how little reaction there has been to this from the national bodies representing rural communities.
“It’s being reduced from 10% to 7% of Pillar II of RDP. The Government could have held or increased on the 10%.
“In addition, Ireland reduced co-financing to that 7% (to 35%), something they didn’t do to the other 93% (co-financed at 46%) and the result is that LEADER funding is now €250m – down from €370 million in the last programme.
“Given the need for rural economic renewal, an increase of co-financing by Government to at least 46% would deliver a win-win situation, bringing the programme to €298millon.”
The decision on the LEADER bids is expected to be made within two months and then there’s up to six months for groups to prepare the local development strategy and submit it. So, it will be late autumn at best before the next LEADER programme gets underway.
“The EU is watching the process and, in light of the successful delivery of past programmes, it would be difficult to visualise that the existing LEADER companies wouldn’t have the capacity to succeed in an expression of interest.
“Given the level of fog, there is a risk of a change, from truly bottom-up structures determining the strategy to a committee of the local authority, which has been recently established to mirror the structure of Local Development Companies such as Ballyhoura Development.
“Whatever the outcome, we need to remember that LEADER is about bottom-up rural development.” CL
FACT BOX
• Family: married to Jim and lives on a dairy and beef farm.• Hobbies: I love amateur drama along with musicals and street theatre. I pretend to play golf.• Reads: I knocked a real kick out of Hanging with the Elephants by Michael Harding. I enjoyed the insights in The Accidental Entrepreneur by Gerry Murphy (of Churchtown renewal fame) which tells the story around the development of Great Gas.• TV/cinema: Raw is a great drama series and I also like to watch current affairs, documentaries and music.• Influences: I think my parents and a lot of the people I work with. Sr Vincent in Navan was visually impaired and an inspirational woman. My colleagues are amazing, as are so many of the people who’ve been on the boards I’ve worked with.• Style: Smart casual. I’m not a shopper and buy locally, usually when I’m somewhere for another reason.• Memorable moment: It’s the small ones that get me, like when someone shifts attitude, or like this call from a community chairman last week. He was excited about what he’d learned during a visit to another community – seeing what they’d achieved. 
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