asked the Minister for Labour the amount of money made available from the EEC Social Fund; and how he proposes to spend the money made available for 1983.
Written Answers. - EEC Social Fund.
406.
Since our accession to the EEC in 1973, assistance from the Social Fund paid to date is £255.3 million.
Social fund assistance formally approved for 1983 operations to date amounts to £119.7 million. Further approvals are expected later in the year which will bring total approvals for all 1983 operations to approximately £128 million.
In regard to the use to which the money is put, I should explain that assistance from the Social Fund is provided in respect of approved programmes of vocational training, work-experience and certain other employment-related activities and must be spent on those programmes. Fund assistance is paid directly to the individual agencies which promote these approved programmes. The main beneficiaries in 1983 will be AnCO, the IDA, SFADCo, Údáras na Gaeltachta, CERT, the National Manpower Service of my Department, the Departments of Education and the Environment, the Youth Employment Agency and the National Rehabilitation Board (NRB) on behalf of all health boards and voluntary organisations concerned with vocational rehabilitation of the handicapped.