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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 5 Jun 1991

Vol. 409 No. 4

Ceisteanna — Questions. Oral Answers. - Second European Poverty Programme.

Proinsias De Rossa

Question:

12 Proinsias De Rossa asked the Minister for Social Welfare when the final evaluation of the Irish projects in the Second European Poverty Programme will be published; and if he will make a statement on the matter.

The Second European Poverty Programme which was adopted by the Council of Minister in December 1984 concluded at the end of 1989.

Responsibility for evaluation of the programme is a matter for the European Commission. In February 1991 the Commission published its final report on the programme. The purpose of this report was to evaluate the measures implemented and set out the lessons to be learned.

The evaluation of projects in individual members states was carried out on a consultancy basis for the European Commission. Any decision in relation to publication of these reports is a matter for the Commission.

According to European figures, there are currently 50 million people living in poverty in the 12 member states of the European Community. Given that £37 million is to be spent on pilot projects in an effort to tackle this problem in various countries, would the Minister agree that its imperative that we study the findings of the pilot projects carried out in this country? At least one quarter of the people in this country are living in poverty and only the people in Greece and Portugal are worse off. The Minister has stated that an evaluation was carried out an a consultancy basis for the European Commission, but would he not agree that it is imperative that we carry out an analysis of the pilot projects undertaken here?

We stressed the value of the projects from our point of view and succeeded in having two major projects in Limerick and Connemara and one smaller project involving the travelling community in Dublin included in the third programme. We have made the argument for that. We would have our own ideas on how the money for these projects should be spent but the Community would not necessarily agree with us on that. We can only put our views forward. We learn things from them, and, as the Deputy will know, I introduced a community development programme throughout the country last year. That programme is going well. The Government agreed to provide the funding for three years. We have picked out what we believed was particularly valuable in the previous projects and built a development programme on it. When the partners in the Programme for Economic and Social Progress went about developing an area based strategy quite a large number of the projects fitted into that strategy and provided a basis on which to build. In practice it is having an effect.

I am not arguing with the Minister that the Programme for Economic and Social Progress targeted areas and community based projects. Unless the pilot projects entered into under the first and second programme are analysed we are building the foundations on sand. Would the Minister agree that it is imperative that the analyses is completed before we go on to the third and fourth programme?

The Commission carry out the evaluations and decide on the publication of reports or evaluations——

Will the Minister seek reports on the Irish projects from the Commission?

Of course, we have discussed them in the first instance in trying to establish our new projects and it was on the basis of those discussions that we got extra projects, which were put in place. It is the Community's policy to have two very large funded projects, but I might have been able to spread the money over a greater number of projects and still have achieved a very substantial development. In fact we managed to get money from Government to do that and these projects are going fairly well at present.

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