Who We Are

Monaghan Integrated Development CLG is a local development company. Local development promotes area-based, integrated, “bottom-up” interventions to address long-term unemployment, economic marginalisation and social exclusion. It recognises the interdependence of economic, social and cultural issues in working for sustainable and inclusive growth and social cohesion.

There are 48 local development companies in Ireland today. In the late 1980’s and the 1990’s there was increased focus on local economic development involving partnership among representatives of local public and private socio-economic interests. So we started life as Monaghan Partnership in 1996 and became Monaghan Integrated Development (MID) in 2008.  Local development aims to provide the structure, funding and support for the partnership sectors to work together for the benefit of the area. It is about empowering local communities to sponsor innovative strategies and projects for enterprise, improving employment opportunities, education, training and community development. We share a number of key features which all the other Local Development Companies or LDC's: 

• Bottom-up approach – working with communities to develop local solutions to local issues
• Focus on promoting local economic development
• Focus on addressing inequality and social exclusion
• Not-for-profit companies limited by guarantee
• Governed by a multi-sectoral partnership structure. A typical Local Development Company Voluntary Board will comprise:
  • 35% community / voluntary representatives
  • 26% statutory representatives
  • 22% social partner representatives
  • 17% local authority representatives

What we do

We provide services and supports for individuals, community groups and enterprises throughout Co Monaghan. We use a wide range of programmes to do so.

We use Community Development Principles to achieve our goals. That means that our supports build:

• Empowerment – by increasing the ability of groups/individuals to influence issues that affect them and their communities
• Participation – by supporting groups/individuals to take part in decision making
• Inclusion – through equality proofing and the recognition that some people may need additional support to overcome barriers they face
• Self-determination – ensuring that actions support the right of people/communities to make their own choices
• Partnership – recognizing that many agencies can contribute to community development.
• Reflective practice – the ability to review and evaluate work undertaken at both individual and collective level to ensure that lessons learned is used to change approaches and design new actions for future work.

We promote social inclusion, equality and diversity throughout all our programmes. Social exclusion in County Monaghan has many causes. Tackling one cause on its own is unlikely to solve the problem. Individuals or communities experiencing disadvantage or lack of opportunity usually need support on a broad range of issues like education, health, accommodation, core skills and employment.