The Fianna Fáil North-West MEP, Mr Seán Ó Neachtain, has dismissed criticism of Údarás na Gaeltachta in an assessment of the organisation by a university economist.
Dr Finbarr Bradley, professor of economics at NUI Maynooth, has recommended that the board of the Gaeltacht development authority be cut in half, on the basis that there is currently an overlap between the work of its executives and its elected board members.
The board members are mainly locally elected and have short-term aims, Dr Bradley noted in his assessment for TG4, which involved examination of minutes of Údarás board meetings obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
However, Mr Ó Neachtain, who is a member of the Údarás board and a former Galway county councillor, said that he "totally rejected" the idea that the composition of the board should be reduced from its current democratic state. Any return to a bureaucratic board should be avoided, he said.
Some 17 of 20 board members are elected by the public, while the chairman and two others are nominated by the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs. This concept of locally elected representation had led to "unprecedented development" in Gaeltacht areas since 1979, when the Údarás replaced Gaeltarra Éireann, Mr Ó Neachtain said. Such was its success that the model should be applied in non-Gaeltacht areas in the west and north-west, he said.
The authority has struggled to create any new employment in Gaeltacht areas in recent years, and has been the subject of several recent controversies.
