A Chara, - The North Leitrim Men's Group is a creative response to the decimation of the social fabric of rural Ireland by the painful haemorrhage of emigration. Theresa Judge's report of January 12th pictured three men from the group, participants in a FAS scheme. They were posed with resident artist Christine Mackey around a splendid stone mosaic which they had created for the local community.
The human value of the project was spelled out starkly by one participant, James Denning, aged 58. He lived in isolation on a mountain where he often passed four days at a stretch without any human contact. For him, this FAS scheme was a lifeline, a source of vital social belonging and a chance to contribute to his own community. It cost the State only £20 per week in addition to his dole. What an enriching enhancement of the community for such a modest outlay! Rural Ireland has a crying need for initiatives like this, and for many new schemes involving inter-Departmental creativity and vision.
But now the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment has changed the rules. Participants will be limited to a maximum of only three years on such FAS community employment schemes, and there must be a one-year gap in these three years. So James Denning must resume the bleak vigil on his Leitrim mountain-top while the State pockets the £20.
How deeply disappointing that the State bureaucracy is blind to the compelling human value of such a scheme. Local leaders P. J. Leddy and Pat Love have rightly called on the Department to reconsider, to recognise the unique problems of rural depression in empty landscapes haunted by ghostly generations of departed youth. The Department still has an opportunity to be flexible, and even at this late stage to shout stop. Surely the Minister and the Department can see that FAS should not mean BAS in rural Ireland? -Yours, etc.
Seamus Mac Gabhann, NUI Maynooth, Co Kildare.