Participation by place-based community organisations in local development: case studies from East Cork

The past two decades have witnessed concerted efforts by theorists and policy-makers to place civil society at the centre of social, economic and environmental development processes. To this end, policies grounded in a Third Way approach have sought to forge stronger linkages between the state and voluntary community-based organisations. Concepts such as active citizenship, social capital, partnership and sustainability have underpinned this political philosophy, which reflects a movement in development theory and political science away from notions of state-led development and unfettered neo-liberalism. In the Irish context, a series of initiatives have given expression to this new policy agenda, the foremost amongst them the publication of a White Paper in 2000. New local governance structures and development schemes have multiplied since the early 1990s, while the physical planning system has also been modified. All this has taken place against the backdrop of unprecedented economic development and social change precipitated by the ‘Celtic Tiger’.This thesis examines the interaction between community organisations, state institutions and other actors in development processes in East Cork. It focuses upon place-based community organisations, who seek to represent the interests of their particular localities. A case study approach is employed to explore the realpolitik of local development and to gauge the extent to which grassroots community organisations wield influence in determining the development of their communities. The study concludes that the transfer of decision-making power to community organisations has been more illusory than real and that, in practical terms, such groups remain marginal in the circuits of power. However, the situation of community organisations operating in different geographical locales cannot be reduced to an overarching theoretical logic. The case studies show that the modus operandi of community groups varies considerably and can be influenced by specific local geographies, events and personalities.

Planning the deployment of fault-tolerant wireless sensor networks

Since Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are subject to failures, fault-tolerance becomes an important requirement for many WSN applications. Fault-tolerance can be enabled in different areas of WSN design and operation, including the Medium Access Control (MAC) layer and the initial topology design. To be robust to failures, a MAC protocol must be able to adapt to traffic fluctuations and topology dynamics. We design ER-MAC that can switch from energy-efficient operation in normal monitoring to reliable and fast delivery for emergency monitoring, and vice versa. It also can prioritise high priority packets and guarantee fair packet deliveries from all sensor nodes. Topology design supports fault-tolerance by ensuring that there are alternative acceptable routes to data sinks when failures occur. We provide solutions for four topology planning problems: Additional Relay Placement (ARP), Additional Backup Placement (ABP), Multiple Sink Placement (MSP), and Multiple Sink and Relay Placement (MSRP). Our solutions use a local search technique based on Greedy Randomized Adaptive Search Procedures (GRASP). GRASP-ARP deploys relays for (k,l)-sink-connectivity, where each sensor node must have k vertex-disjoint paths of length ≤ l. To count how many disjoint paths a node has, we propose Counting-Paths. GRASP-ABP deploys fewer relays than GRASP-ARP by focusing only on the most important nodes – those whose failure has the worst effect. To identify such nodes, we define Length-constrained Connectivity and Rerouting Centrality (l-CRC). Greedy-MSP and GRASP-MSP place minimal cost sinks to ensure that each sensor node in the network is double-covered, i.e. has two length-bounded paths to two sinks. Greedy-MSRP and GRASP-MSRP deploy sinks and relays with minimal cost to make the network double-covered and non-critical, i.e. all sensor nodes must have length-bounded alternative paths to sinks when an arbitrary sensor node fails. We then evaluate the fault-tolerance of each topology in data gathering simulations using ER-MAC.

The impact of new public management on the roles of elected councillors, management and the community sector in Irish local government: a case study of Cork County Council

The fundamental aim of this thesis is to examine the effect of New Public Management (NPM) on the traditional roles of elected representatives, management and community activists in Irish local government. This will be achieved through a case study analysis of one local authority, Cork County Council. NPM promises greater democracy in decision-making. Therefore, one can hypothesise that the roles of the three key groupings identified will become more influenced by principles of participatory decision-making. Thus, a number of related questions will be addressed by this work, such as, have the local elected representatives been empowered by NPM? Has a managerial revolution taken place? Has local democracy been enhanced by more effective community participation? It will be seen in chapter 2 that these questions have not been adequately addressed to date in NPM literature. The three groups identified can be regarded as stakeholders although the researcher is cautious in using this term because of its value-laden nature. Essentially, in terms of Cork County Council, stakeholders can be defined as decision-makers and people within the organization and its environment who are interested in or could be affected directly or indirectly by organizational performance. This is an all-embracing definition and includes all citizens, residents, community groups and client organizations. It is in this context that the term 'stakeholder' should be understood when it is occasionally used in this thesis. In this case, the perceptions of elected councilors, management and community representatives with regard to their changing roles are as significant as the changes themselves. The chapter begins with a brief account of the background to this research. This is followed by an explanation of the methodology which is used and then concludes with short statements about the remaining chapters in the thesis.

Supporting therapist engagement in evidence based practice: Developing a continuing education programme through participatory action research

Therapists find it challenging to integrate research evidence into their clinical decision-making because it may involve modifying their existing practices. Although continuing education (CE) programmes for evidence-based practice (EBP) have employed various approaches to increase individual practitioner’s knowledge and skills, these have been shown to have little impact in changing customary behaviours. To date, there has been little attempt to actively engage therapists as collaborators in developing educational processes concerning EBP. The researcher collaborated with seven clinical therapists (one occupational therapist, four physiotherapists and two speech and language therapists) enrolled in a new post-qualification Implementing Evidence in Therapy Practice (IETP) MSc module to monitor and adapt the learning programme over ten weeks. The participating therapists actively engaged in participatory action research (PAR) iterative cycles of reflecting→ planning→ acting→ observing→ reflecting with the researcher. Mixed methods were used to evaluate the IETP module and its influence on therapists’ subsequent engagement in EBP activities. Data were gathered immediately on completion of the module and five months later. Immediate post-module findings revealed four components as being important to the therapists: 1) characteristics of the learning environment; 2) acquisition of relevant EBP skills; 3) nature of the learning process; and 4) acquiring confidence. The two themes and sub-themes which emerged from individual interviews conducted five months post-module expanded on the four components already identified. Theme 1: Experiencing the learning (sub-themes: module organisation; learning is relational; improving the module); and theme 2: Enacting the learning through a new way of being (sub-themes: criticality and reflection; self agency; modelling EBP behaviours; positioning self in an EB work culture). The therapists’ perspectives had by then shifted from that of a learner to that of a clinician constructing a new sense of self as an evidence-based practitioner. Findings from this study underline the importance of the process of socially constructed knowledge and of empowering learners through collaboratively designed continuing education programmes. In the student-driven learning environment, therapists chose repetitive skill-building and authentic problem-solving activities which reflected the complexity of the environments to which they were expected to transfer their learning. These findings have implications for educators designing EBP continuing education programmes, during which students develop professional ways of being.

Territorial development, planning reform and urban governance: the case of Ireland's second-tier cities

The increased emphasis within Europe on the role of second-tier cities has implications for the ways in which these urban centres are considered within national spatial planning strategies. In centralised, monocentric states like Ireland, there has been a general ambivalence towards urban policy for cities outside the capital city, and historically this has prevented the development of a strong, diversified urban hierarchy undermining prospects for balanced regional development. This paper examines the extent to which a new found emphasis on Ireland’s second-tier cities which emerged in the ‘Gateways’ policy of the National Spatial Strategy (NSS, 2002) was matched by subsequent political and administrative commitment to facilitate the development of these urban centres. Following a discussion of the position of second-tier cities in an international context and a brief overview of recent demographic and economic trends, the paper assesses the relative performance of Ireland’s second-tier cities in influencing development trends, highlighting a comprehensive failure to deliver compact urban growth. In this context, the paper then discusses the implications of current development plans for the second-tier cities and proposals for Irish local government reform for securing compact urban development.