Vol. 472 No. 3
43 Mr. E. Byrne asked the Minister for Enterprise and Employment the progress, if any, which has been made to date in relation to reviewing the operation of the county enterprise boards; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23007/96]
I would refer the Deputy to my reply to his question on this topic which I answered on 22 October 1996. The detailed information report on the activities of the CEBs from 1993 to end 1995, which is not an evaluation as such and to which I referred in my reply on 22 October, is close to being finalised and will be published as soon as possible.
The external evaluator appointed under the Operational Programme for Local Urban and Rural Development, 1994-99, is continuing her review of the local enterprise subprogramme under which county enterprise boards are funded. The review is expected to be completed by the end of this year and presented to the monitoring committee of the operational programme at its spring 1997 meeting.
As I stated in my reply on 22 October, this is the first year in which a system has been introduced for allocating resources to county enterprise boards taking account of factors such as population levels, area capacity and the quality of the enterprise plan prepared by each city and county enterprise board. Funding will be allocated to each board in 1997 on a similar basis taking into account the performance of CEBs and their expenditure patterns in 1996. Future allocation decisions will of course take into account relevant conclusions from the reviews.
