Trevor Sargent
Question:66 Mr. Sargent asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the progress, if any, on the community initiatives monitoring committee established to monitor Structural Funds in Ireland. [27269/98]
Written Answers. - Community Initiative Monitoring Committees.
There are separate community initiative monitoring committees for each of the ten EU Community Initiatives currently being implemented in Ireland. Lead responsibility for these lies with various Government Departments. My Department leads on four such initiatives – Employment, Adapt, SME's and RETEX and supports three monitoring committees. By agreement with the European Commission, a single committee monitors both Employment and Adapt.
These committees were established in 1994 and are responsible for all major decisions to do with the implementation of the relevant initiatives.
Those for which my Department is responsible in its area of responsibility have worked and are continuing to work quite well. Just as the mainstream or CSF operational programmes were subjected to independent critical mid-term reviews of their stewardship in 1996-97, the various Community initiatives were individually vetted at that time. In the case of those run by my Department, the broad picture reflected was on of solid progress in implementation.