asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs the funds that are available to support EEC regional policy.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - EEC Regional Policy.
21.
Proposals from the Commission for the establishment of a regional development fund and the conditions under which it would operate have been tabled before the Council of Ministers which has not yet come to a decision in the matter.
Accordingly, agreement has not yet been reached on the size of the proposed fund and it is not possible to supply the information requested by the Deputy.
Can the Minister say what progress has been made in this regard and when a decision is likely to be taken?
No progress has been made in this regard, really, since the beginning of this year but at a recent meeting of the Council of Ministers the Commission asked the Commission of the Council of Ministers to reactivate the matter and to initiate consultations with member Governments with a view to seeing whether they could formulate a proposal that might secure a wider measure of agreement than was secured by their earlier proposals.
Has the Minister any evidence to indicate what the Commission on Regional Policy have been doing since their last proposals were so peremptorily dismissed by the Council?
Waiting for an opportunity to intervene again, I suspect.
Effectively, doing nothing.
There is a certain measure of truth in that.
I am not blaming them for it.
To be fair to them I think the position in member countries made it perhaps desirable that the matter should be left in that way for a period but the Commission now feels, and I think rightly, the time has come to start sounding out opinion again with a view to getting agreement on a proposal in the months ahead.
Will the Minister do everything possible to get this matter discussed and decided on as quickly as possible because it was a major issue in relation to the campaign to support the Common Market?
I will do everything in my power to get this matter decided as favourably as possible because this is a major Irish interest. Whether at a given moment the most favourable outcome will derive from pressure to get it settled urgently or will derive, perhaps, from pausing for time for thought and re-thought, is a matter upon which one will have to make up one's own judgment. I have had the view that there may have been some advantage in not pressing the matter for some months but that we are approaching a point where it could usefully be considered again. The Deputy will be aware that the Commission's proposals as put forward were, in our view, quite unsatisfactory and in the hopes that they may have second and better thoughts we felt it wise not to press the matter for some months. I hope that now some progress will be made.