Vol. 542 No. 4
63 Ms Cooper-Flynn asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the amount of money which has been allocated and spent to date by her Department in each of the BMW counties under the national development plan. [24622/01]
My Department is the designated managing authorities for two of the operational programmes under the national development plan. These are the productive sector operational programme and the employment and human resources development operational programme. My Department is also responsible for a number of measures under the regional operational programmes. Measures in the operational programmes are administered by the State-agencies under the aegis of my Department. Expenditure broken down at county level is not available.
Under the productive sector operational programme the agencies involved in implementing measures are IDA Ireland, Enterprise Ireland and Shannon Development. The allocation of spending in the BMW region by these agencies in 2000 was 158 million and of this 8.2milllion was spent. The allocation for spending in 2001 is 203.7 million and provisional returns from the agencies indicate that 21.2 million has been spent to end June 2001.
While expenditure, under the productive sector operational programme has been less than forecast expenditure by the development agencies in the BMW region is on target. There are a number of reasons for this. There was a considerable delay in a number of measures in obtaining State aid approval from the European Commission. Also with new schemes there is an inevitable time-lag from the launch of schemes to the receipt and evaluation of proposals and the incurring of expenditure. In addition expenditure was still continuing in 2000 in respect of commitment made up to the end of 1999 under the Industry Operational Programme 1994-99. It is anticipated that the level of expenditure under the programme will increase over the next two years.
Under the employment and human resources development operational programme the agencies involved in implementing measures are FÁS and Enterprise Ireland. The allocation for spending in the BMW region under the operational programme by these agencies in 2000 was 247.69 million and of this 220.11 million was spent. The allocation for spending in 2001 is 242.63 million and provisional returns from the agencies indicate that 116.5 million has been spent to end June 2001.
