Vol. 383 No. 3
asked the Minister for Finance the arrangements for consulting local industrial interests in County Meath in regard to the drafting of the regional plans for the region for submission for support under the provisions of the reformed EC structural funds; and if the local interest involved will have merely advisory powers or will have some actual share in executive responsibility.
40.
asked the Minister for Finance the structure which has been established in respect of the preparation of integrated plans for the seven designated regions to seek EC structural funds; the committees, if any, which have been formed to advise him as to the preparation of each plan; the names of those appointed to any such committees; with whom he has consulted regarding the preparation or the submissions to be made to the EC in respect of each region; and the date by which he proposes to submit a plan in respect of each region to the Commission.
I propose to take Questions Nos. 38 and 40 together.
The area of the State will continue to be treated as a single region for purposes of European Community Structural Funds. In order to benefit from the increased funds which are to be provided from the Social Fund, the Regional Fund and the Guidance Section of the Agricultural Fund, it will be necessary to draw up a development plan for the country which will set out the Government's priorities in the areas relevant to these funds on a multi-annual basis. My Department have been assigned responsibility for preparing this plan.
This plan will be supported by operational programmes which will set out in more detail how the expenditures envisaged in it will be allocated. Some of these programmes, such as that relating to national roads, will be national programmes. Others will be sub-national and for this purpose the country has been broken down into seven sub-regions. These sub-regions are:
|
Region |
Composition |
|
1. |
Dublin City and County |
|
2. |
Carlow, Kilkenny, Tipperary South Riding, Wexford, Waterford |
|
3. |
Cork, constituency of South Kerry |
|
4. |
Clare, Limerick, Tipperary North Riding, south-west Offaly, constituency of north Kerry |
|
5. |
Galway, Mayo, Roscommon |
|
6. |
Donegal, Sligo, Leitrim, Cavan, Mon- aghan |
|
7. |
Louth, Meath, Kildare, Wicklow, Laois, Longford, Westmeath, remainder of Offaly |
The administrative arrangements which have been adopted for the preparation and co-ordination of the subregional plans are as follows:
(1) A Committee of Ministers and Departmental Secretaries, chaired by the Taoiseach, will have responsibility for overseeing the implementation of new Structural Fund arrangements.
(2) A working group representative of the relevant Government Departments, assisted as appropriate by the relevant State bodies, together with the management of all county councils and county borough corporations, in the sub-region and the EC Commission will be responsible for the preparation of the operational programme for each of the sub-regions.
(3) Each working group will prepare their operational programme in close liaison with a separate advisory group for the sub-region which will be composed of all the main representative bodies with an interest in development — CII, CIF, chambers of commerce (one to represent all in the sub-region), ICTU, IFA, ICMSA, ICOS and Macra na Feirme — as well as the county councils, county borough corporations, borough corporations and urban district councils over 15,000 population in the sub-region which will be represented by their chairmen in each case. (In the Dublin sub-region, the Dublin Chamber of Commerce is represented on the working group.) These advisory groups will accept submissions from interested persons and groups and, on the basis of such submissions and their own thinking, will make recommendations to the working group on the content of the programmes.
Final responsibility for the content of these programmes will rest with the Government in order to ensure consistency between them. There will be scope for feedback from the sub-national programmes to the plan and the national programmes and vice versa.
The chairpersons and secretariat of the working groups are being provided by my Department as will the secretariat of the advisory groups. It is expected, however, that the advisory groups will select their own chairpersons.
It is not the convention to name officials in the House and, accordingly, I do not propose to give the names of members of the working groups. Nominations are still awaited from most of the bodies represented on the advisory groups.
The timetable envisaged by me is that the national development plan will be submitted to the Commission as early as possible in 1989 and by 31 March 1989 at the latest — which is the date specified in the relevant regulation. The EC Commission will complete the Community Support Framework (which will set out the extent to which the Commission is willing to provide assistance from Structural Funds in respect of the national development plan) within six months of receipt of the plan, though it is to be hoped that less time will be needed. It is hoped that the operational programmes can be submitted at the same time as, or as soon as possible after, the plan.
