Vol. 432 No. 6
10 Mr. McGinley asked the Minister for Enterprise and Employment whether the boundaries of the regions used by the IDA and FÁS and in the regional submissions for spending under the EC Structural programmes are the same; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
The operational regions established by IDA and FÁS pre-dated the setting up of regional structures for Structural Funds purposes. IDA regions coincided with those of the former planning regions while those of FÁS were designed to try to match population needs while respecting county boundaries.
In two instances the subregional structures of IDA and FÁS coincide with the subregional structures adopted for EC Structural Funds purposes while the SFADCo mid-west region matches the mid-west Structural Funds region. In respect of the remaining sub-regions used for Structural Funds programmes there are some minor variations from the operational regions adopted by FÁS and IDA. However, administrative arrangements are in place to ensure that, where appropriate, relevant managers from both IDA and FÁS, as well as officials from the Department of Enterprise and Employment, attend meetings and provide inputs to the deliberations and work of the various sub-regional groups.
Does the Minister agree it is ludicrous that three different regional boundaries operate within one Department and that it is impossible to evaluate programmes where the basic data are collected on that basis? We have data on certain regions but different administrations are used for other regions. Will the Minister agree that in those circumstances it is difficult to know what is happening? Does he agree there is a need to establish one set of regions that will apply uniformly throughout the country?
My Department which is just six months in operation, inherited different boundaries from various Departments. The establishment of Forbairt, the industrial indigenous agency, a branch of the IDA, will enable us to avail of the opportunity to harmonise if not to integrate fully the regions operated by FÁS and the IDA in the past as well as the structural regions to which the Deputy referred. As the Deputy will be aware, the Government recently agreed on a regional structure which will be county based. It is our intention to harmonise, in so far as possible, in line with the recommendations of the Barrington report which was drawn up with reference to local government boundaries in the mid-seventies, to get some degree of rationality and comparability and to avail of the opportunities to which the Deputy referred. The present structure does not lead to ease of comparison for the matters the Deputy is talking about and we are taking steps to address that position.
When does the Minister envisage that a uniform set of regions will be in operation? Is his suggestion, that there will be some degree of harmonisation another way of saying that one uniform set of regions will not be achieved?
My Department, in conjunction with the IDA and FÁS intend to have a single integrated set of regions. That will require a certain degree of study because of regions drawn up by FÁS related for the first time to population demand as distinct from geographical spread of territory. We have to see if we can reconcile the regions, not for the purposes of having bureaucratic neatness but to ensure that the service to the citizen is of the highest order.
When the Minister talks about a regional structure and mentions the existence of the county enterprise boards, he is not suggesting that whatever harmonisation or rationalisation takes place will be based on the county unit.
In so far as I am referring to the Government's recent decision on the regional authorities proposed by the Minister for the Environment on foot of the Barrington proposal, I am referring to units of regions which are assembled around the existing county boundaries.
