HC Deb 09 June 1992 vol 209 cc108-9W
Mr. Trimble

To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, pursuant to his answer of 2 June,Official Report, columns 441-42, if he will state the person or body by whom each member of the Northern Ireland Rural Development Council was first nominated or proposed.

Mr. Hanley

The members of the Rural Development Council for Northern Ireland were nominated by the following bodiesThe Department of Agriculture for Northern Ireland nominated Jimmy Armstrong, Pat Jess, John Kelly, Aideen McGinley, Patsy McShane and Malcom Woods. The Council for Nature Conservation and the Countryside nominated Robert Hanna. The Rural Community Network nominated Mark Conway, John Donaghy, Paul McAllister and John McGrady. District Councils nominated John Fee, Warren Loane and Malachy McSparran. The Ulster Farmers' Union nominated Hugh Linehan. The Northern Ireland Agricultural Producers' Association nominated Wilfred Mitchell.

Mr. Trimble

To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, pursuant to his answer of 2 June,Official Report, columns 441-42, (1) if he will list the wards and townlands in addition to those mentioned in his answer in which the Inter-Departmental Committee on Rural Development established that pockets of deprivation existed;

(2) if he will state the other criteria in addition to geographic and social isolation, high unemployment, demographic imbalances, declining services and poor facilities that were used to select the most deprived rural areas for the purpose of the rural development initiative and give the definitions of geographic isolation and social isolation employed by the Inter-Departmental Committee on Rural Development;

(3) if he will state (a) the precise level of unemployment employed by the Inter-Departmental Committee on Rural Development in selecting the most deprived rural areas for the purpose of the rural development initiative and (b) what demographic imbalances and services and facilities were taken into account.

Mr. Hanley

My reply of 2 June,Official Report, columns 441-42, named five main areas which were identified by the Inter-Departmental Committee on Rural Development (IDCRD) as representing concentrations of the most deprived rural areas of Northern Ireland. The IDCRD also agreed that pockets of deprivation could be isolated in most rural areas on a ward or townland basis but that attempts to be too geographically definitive could be unnecessarily restrictive. Accordingly no list of such wards and townlands has been prepared. Rural community groups from outside the primary target areas are not excluded from applying to the Rural Development Council for advice and assistance.

All the criteria used to select the most deprived rural areas can be subsumed within the list included in the question. Geographical isolation was defined on the basis of the absence of car ownership and the close conformity between areas of above average deprivation and the location of marginal or disadvantaged agricultural land.

The principal measure of unemployment was derived from the 1981 census of population and was defined as the percentage of economically active males not in employment. This was used in combination with other measures of deprivation also taken from the census of population to develop an index of multiple deprivation.

In its wide-ranging consultations with rural interests the IDCRD was advised of the problem of the emigration of young people from rural areas and that the elderly were forming an increasing proportion of rural populations. The IDCRD was made aware of limitations of public transport and of high levels of unfit dwellings in rural areas.