Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 18 Oct 2001

Vol. 542 No. 4

Written Answers. - National Development Plan.

Beverley Flynn

Question:

190 Ms Cooper-Flynn asked the Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation the amount of money which has been allocated and spent to date by his Department in each of the BMW counties under the national development plan. [24634/01]

Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation (Dr. McDaid):

Funding under the NDP is allocated on a regional basis. The funding allocated to date under the NDP to the BMW region in respect of the various programmes for which my Department has responsibility is as follows:

Programme	Allocation to BMW2000-2006			Latest available figures for expenditure in BMW since 1 January 2000
	£m	m	£m	m
Social Inclusion	98.49	125.06	9.59	12.18
Employment and Human Resource Development	37.50	47.62	9.20	11.68
Tourism Marketing Fund	49.50	62.85	n/a	n/a
Tourism Product Investment Scheme	41.00	52.00	nil	nil
Recreation and Sports Measure	26.00	33.00	nil	nil

No actual expenditure has yet been incurred from the 52 million – £41 million – allocated to the BMW regional operational programme under the tourism sub-measures 1 to 3 of the local enterprise development priority as the tourism product investment scheme, the vehicle for the expenditure, has had to be notified, for the first time, to the European Commission in line with the rules on state aid. Once clearance is secured, the scheme will be launched and project proposals will be invited by Bord Fáilte Éireann, which will administer the scheme.

No expenditure has been incurred to date also from the £26 million allocated to the BMW regional operational programme for the provision of community sporting and recreational facilities under the culture, recreation and sports measure of the local infrastructure sub-programme. Locations have yet to be identified and will be decided in the context of the national spatial strategy being undertaken by the Department of the Environment and Local Government and scheduled for completion by the end of the year.

The amount of money spent to date, according to the latest figures supplied by the management authorities to my Department, in each of the BMW counties under the national development plan is set out in the following table:

County	CERT Expenditureto Sept. 2001			Social InclusionExpenditureto June 2001
	£		£
Cavan	20,038	25,443	368,955	468,476
Donegal	2,668,399	3,388,168	1,624,110	2,062,194
Galway	3,191,249	4,052,050	1,677,868	2,130,453
Laois	189,864	241,078	245,642	311,901
Leitrim	20,227	25,683	577,104	732,771
Longford	256,059	325,128	436,484	554,220
Louth	844,674	1,072,514	1,164,052	1,478,041
Mayo	230,652	292,867	957,826	1,216,188
Monaghan	81,208	103,114	451,253	572,973
Offaly	0	0	524,203	665,600
Roscommon	55,177	70,060	591,081	750,519
Sligo	184,880	234,750	291,900	370,637
Westmeath	1,458,009	1,851,290	683,689	868,106
Total	9,200,436	11,682,145	9,594,167	12,182,079

Additionally, £31.558 million – 40.07 million – has been provided to date under the tourism marketing fund of the productive sector operational programme under the NDP. Due to the nature of this expenditure, it is not possible to disaggregate it on a county basis.

Beverley Flynn

Question:

191 Ms Cooper-Flynn asked the Minister for Education and Science the amount of money which has been allocated and spent to date by his Department in each of the BMW counties under the national development plan. [24635/01]

Minister for Education and Science (Dr. Woods):

As the Deputy will be aware the Border Midland and Western region was designated in 1999 as an Objective One region. In general, programmes in the education sector are delivered on a national basis. My Department has provided provisional expenditure returns in respect of all measures, funded under the national development plan, for both regions, to the respective operational programme managing authorities. The provisional expenditure returns in respect of the BMW region, for all programmes funded under the 2000-06 NDP, are as follows:

January-December 2000 – £138.3 million – 175.7 million;

January-June 2001 – £80.9 million – 102.7 million.

As regards the specific information requested by the Deputy on expenditure at county level, due to the wide range of programmes in the education sector it would require an inordinate amount of official time to answer the question in the detail requested. However, if the Deputy has any queries regarding a specific programme, I will be happy to obtain the information for her.