Written Answers. - Departmental Agencies.
Enda Kenny
Question:
407
Mr. Kenny
asked the
Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation
the name, remit, budget and responsibility, including its headquarters and staff, of any organisation or agency under the aegis of his Department involved in any type of development in the BMW region; the monitoring process involved by his Department in respect of such development; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
[9805/01]
Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation (Dr. McDaid): The tourism, social inclusion and culture, recreation and sports elements of the national development plan, NDP, which are under the aegis of my Department and are being operated in the Border-midlands-western, BMW, region are as follows: Bord Fáilte will be the implementing body for the tourism product investment scheme, towards which some 100 million of NDP funding has been earmarked for tourism projects in the BMW region.
The board will be responsible for the monitoring of individual projects and will compile six monthly progress reports for the managing authority, the regional assembly, for submission to the monitoring committee, setting out progress against initial objectives and targets. Bord Fáilte has its headquarters at Baggot Street Bridge, Dublin 2 and its total staffing complement is 239.
CERT is responsible for three sub-measures under the NDP with expenditure totalling £107 million over the period 2000 to 2006: under measure 12a, CERT will facilitate the transition from second level education to job placement within the tourism industry; under measure 12b, CERT will provide training and employment interventions at national, regional and local level for the unemployed, women returning to paid employment, early school leavers and the socially excluded; and under measure 24f, CERT will facilitate raising and maintaining the highest operational standards in tourism and provide training or development intervention for persons already working in industry. The primary focus will be on human resource management and operational best practice.
CERT has its headquarters at Amiens Street, Dublin 1 and has a staffing complement of 91.
Area Development Management Limited, ADM, which was established by the Government in agreement with the European Commission, hasinter alia an intermediary role in allocating funding and managing programmes for local partnership companies and community groups in the BMW region. An amount of £15.75 million is provided in the Vote of my Department for 2001 to meet the cost of these programmes.
The NDP provides that the overall monitoring of these programmes will be carried out by the regional assembly with input from ADM and this Department as appropriate. ADM company's headquarters is in Holles Street, Dublin and it has a total staff complement of 85.
Under the culture, recreation and sports measure of the local infrastructure sub-programme of the regional operational programmes of the NDP, a sum of £26 million has been specifically allocated for the provision of community sporting and recreational facilities for 2000-06 in the BMW region. These facilities will be located at gateway towns to be identified in the national spatial strategy being undertaken by the Department of Environment and Local Government. Once the gateway towns have been identified, proposals will be sought from local authorities and, where appropriate, voluntary and community organisations, for the provision or upgrading sports and recreational facilities. Work on the identification of regional gateways is scheduled for completion by mid-2001, when implementation of the measure can begin.
The Department is a member of the BMW regional operational programme monitoring committee which has responsibility for overseeing the overall operation of the BMW regional operational programme.
