Thank you. It is a real privilege to be here. It is the first time I have come before an Oireachtas joint committee. I have been before a number of scrutiny committees in the Northern Ireland Assembly, as well as the Committee of Public Accounts. My colleague Mr. Shaun Henry and I, with other members of our team, Ms Gina McIntyre and Howard Keery, are responsible for the management of these programmes. It is part of our public accountability governance structures to have the honour of coming before elected representatives and talking about the work we have done.
The committee has a submission from us which outlines in broad terms the background of our work. I do not propose to read through it but I will pick some key items, emphasise them and perhaps give an opportunity to the committee to ask me for clarifications.
The Special EU Programmes Body, SEUPB, as the committee knows, is a result of the Good Friday Agreement. The two key pieces of legislation are the British-Irish Agreement Act 1999 and the North/South Co-operation (Implementation Bodies) (Northern Ireland) Order 1999, which provide a statutory basis for the work of the body. We are accountable directly to the North-South Ministerial Council, which met in sectoral format in February and was attended by the Minister for Finance, Deputy Brian Lenihan, and the Northern Ireland Minister of Finance and Personnel, Sammy Wilson, accompanied by the Minister for Social Development, Margaret Ritchie. We accounted to the council for our progress to date, approval of business plans and so on.
We have direct day-to-day accountability to and working relationships with the Department of Finance in Dublin and the Department of Finance and Personnel in Belfast. They are our accountable Departments, so to speak. In a practical way, however, we deal with almost all Government Departments because of the nature of our work, drawing down funds as matched funding for the European moneys we receive and accounting to them for their disbursement and management. As a body we are in touch on a daily basis, practically and operationally, with most Departments North and South of the Border.
We are subject to normal governance arrangements for non-departmental public bodies, in Northern Ireland terms, or State agencies, in Irish terms. We submit our three-year corporate plans in the normal way. I have a financial memorandum which determines how I should behave as Accounting Officer for all the funds within the programmes, and we have an audit committee made up of representatives of the two Departments of Finance. We also have external members and an external chair. Those are the general governance structures and arrangements for the Special EU Programmes Body.
Our work is concerned with the design, delivery, monitoring, evaluation and management of the INTERREG and PEACE programmes. The legislation passed in 1999 has been updated twice since — once in 1999 and again in 2007 — to give effect to the fact that while the legislation refers to the programmes as they were back then, it is also intended to cover work on successor programmes. That is the statutory basis on which we continue to do our work.
The EU, as members are aware, works in seven-year programme cycles which in itself determines the work in which we are engaged. The current cycle began in 2007 and will continue to 2013, with a further two years — that is, into 2015 — for continued implementation of the programme in terms of spending. Thus, the current cycle will run up to 2015, with a new one starting in 2013 which will bring us to 2020 and beyond.
The PEACE I, II and III programmes involve an expenditure of just under €2 billion, which is a substantial amount, while the INTERREG programmes involve €561 million. We have no direct involvement in PEACE I, because we came into existence just after it began, but I am the Accounting Officer for the programme, which is being closed during the current year. It was a complex programme involving more than 31,000 applications, 15,000 of which were approved, and the disbursement of €667 million throughout the region. PEACE II and PEACE III, which grew out of PEACE I, are successor programmes to it.
It is worth pointing out that the PEACE programmes are unique as there are no other such programmes anywhere else in Europe. Northern Ireland is the only region in Europe to have a programme which uses Structural Funds to address the legacy of a conflict and take advantage of the opportunities arising from peace. However, the requirement to work within the regulatory environment of the Structural Funds presents significant challenges to the programme. The INTERREG programmes, on the other hand, are part of a family of programmes available throughout Europe. There are almost 70 INTERREG programmes at the moment.
The expenditure involved in the PEACE and INTERREG programmes amounts to €2.556 billion. Our body has disbursed around €100 million a year on these programmes over the last six or seven years and our expenditure for this year will amount to about €70 million. As I mentioned, INTERREG II has been closed, while PEACE I is in the process of being closed. PEACE II and INTERREG IIIA, which began in 2000 and continued to 2006, are in the process of being closed now.
The total value of the PEACE II programme was €944 million, and it involved six measures: economic renewal, with a total value of €350 million; social integration, inclusion and reconciliation; locally based regeneration and development strategies; "outward and forward looking region"; cross-Border co-operation; and a technical assistance heading to provide for the management, administration and delivery of the programmes. It was a complex programme involving more than 56 implementing bodies. The structure was designed to guarantee inclusiveness and ensure every part of society was involved. A total of 7,000 projects were approved and implemented. The programme is currently going through a process of closure and will be closed by September of this year.
With regard to the size, scope and reach of the PEACE II programme, there is a table included in the documentation which gives an indication of the numbers involved. A total of 868,420 individuals participated which should give members some sense of the reach this programme has had. It is extraordinary and there is no programme in Europe quite like it. There is hardly a village, street or townland in Northern Ireland or the Border counties that has not been touched by the PEACE programme. A total of 161,599 people are involved in cross-Border activities under the programme; 1,638 groups are involved in reconciliation projects, which equates to 42,772 people; and more than 100,000 people have gained qualifications, while 77,600 have progressed in employment, education and training.
The programme had a vast reach and was quite diverse in terms of its activities. One could say it was a broad-reaching regional development programme, like many of its sister programmes in the Structural Funds family, but with a distinctive dimension of peace and reconciliation. It sought to build reconciliation between communities, take advantage of opportunities arising from the peace, and address the legacy of the conflict. The impacts of the programme have been documented in a number of evaluation exercises, to which I have referred in the documentation provided to members.
If we consider what happened in the years to 2008, when the spending aspect of the programme finally came to an end, we can see that the programme represented the peace process for people on the ground. It was their opportunity to engage with the peace process. At times, when there were difficulties with the political institutions and structures and so on, the PEACE programme provided groups and individuals, the community and voluntary sector, organisations, institutions, local authorities and other agencies with an opportunity to engage with peace building, conflict resolution and regeneration exercises throughout the region. That is perhaps the most significant and important dimension of the PEACE II programme.
Members will find in the documentation examples of some of the projects supported by the programme. It is somewhat invidious to pick out a small selection when one is talking about 7,000 projects in total. Those we have provided are examples of the diversification of agricultural activities and community start-up business programmes. The WAVE trauma centre is indicative of the importance the programme gave to addressing issues faced by victims and survivors of the conflict and their families. That theme has run throughout the three progammes, PEACE I, II and III.
That is a broad-brush picture of the PEACE II programme. It is approaching closure and will be closed formally by the commission in 2010.
INTERREG IIIA is part of a family of cross-Border co-operation programmes which exist throughout Europe. A total of 430 applications were approved, at a value of €183 million. It is a practical programme aimed at identifying opportunities for co-operation across the Border and providing the resources to enable those co-operation activities to take place. It ranges over areas such as health, transport, economics, business, training, co-operation between local authorities and so on, and is part of a family of such initiatives which happen throughout Europe. In that sense it is not unique but it has developed a very good reputation as a programme that has generated genuine cross-Border activity through joint planning, management, implementation and financing of initiatives in a wide range of different sectors.
In the paper I refer to a range of different examples, such as developing inter-regional economic infrastructure where approximately €50 million was spent, broadband access in the north west where €250,000 was spent, Co-operation and Working Together, CAWT, which is a co-operative venture between the two health Departments aimed at improving primary care services and health services generally in the region, and so on. It is a wide-ranging suite of projects.
I move to PEACE III and INTERREG IVA, which bring us to where we are now. The programming period is 2007 to 2013. It came as a very pleasant surprise to everybody in the region that there was to be a PEACE III programme. Most people expected that the PEACE II extension, which went from 2004 to 2006, would be the last bite of the cherry but the arrival of the PEACE III programme was a very pleasant surprise. A total of €333 million was made available which is what we are managing at present.
We tried to do a number of things with PEACE III; in the first place, to reduce the complexity of the implementation structures. Instead of 56 implementing bodies which we had under PEACE II, we now have only two. We eliminated a great deal of the administrative cost structure and the institutional structure. It is a sign of the progress made under PEACE II that we were able to do that. I do not believe we would have been able to do that much earlier. It is a sign of the significant progress made that there was enough confidence in the structures and systems to be able to do that. We have one joint technical secretariat responsible for implementation of the programme and one implementing body which is a consortium of the community relations council. Pobal implements one aspect of the programme, namely, that dealing with addressing issues facing victims and survivors of the conflict.
We tried to reduce the complexity in administrative structures within the programme. Another thing we set out to do was to focus very strongly on the difficult aspects of building positive relationships and reconciliation. PEACE I and II had included a great deal of physical build economic-type activity but they also addressed the very difficult hearts and minds issues of trying to build reconciliation between communities. PEACE III majors on those difficult hearts and minds issues which remain. It involves building positive relationships at local level, acknowledging and dealing with the past and identifying opportunities for the regeneration of physical aspects of communities to create shared common space. Those are the features of the PEACE III programme which differentiate it from the others. It is also a more strategic programme in its orientation and looks to fund a much smaller number of projects. These are larger and will have a long-lasting, iconic and legacy effect.
I shall give examples of some of the projects. I mentioned the peace and reconciliation action plans. A key feature of the PEACE programme has been the involvement of local authorities. In Northern Ireland one innovative thing that happened was that we created eight clusters of local authorities whereby groups of the authorities worked together on planning in their areas. It was the same in the Border counties.
I refer to some issues we face in the PEACE III programme. Obviously, meeting spending targets is a big challenge. All these were EU programmes and two years after there is a commitment of moneys for any given year they must be spent. That is a challenge but it is one the Special EU Programmes Body has met ever since its formation. There has never been one cent or penny of moneys decommitted from any of the EU programmes we have been involved in and we do not intend to make any changes in that regard.
Other issues face us. We continue to work with the victims and survivors of the conflict and to reach out to parts of the community that perhaps have not had the capacity or the propensity to apply to these programmes. I refer in particular to hard-to-reach, Protestant working-class communities. We have developed a significant number of outreach activities to reach out to those communities and engage with them. I believe we have been able to show some progress in that regard. It is something we monitor very closely.
That is a brief overview of PEACE III and shows where we are at. INTERREG IV is a programme with €256 million available to it. If one compares it to INTERREG III where we financed up to 430 projects, in this one we are likely to finance many fewer but much more strategic projects. Our four themes are enterprise, tourism, collaboration and infrastructure. Some high-profile projects of which members may have become aware are the Kelvin project in the north west which links the region with a transatlantic cable, providing significant additional speed and connectivity capacity for the region. Another significant project is the continuation of the co-operation and working together project between the two Departments of health. Totals of €30 million each were allocated to the Kelvin project and the departmental health project and two very sizeable, significant and strategic projects have been put in place.
There are many others in areas such as tourism. I mention, for example, the Sail West project which seeks to take advantage of all the coastal areas of the northern parts of Ireland and Northern Ireland. One of the very welcome and interesting features of INTERREG IV is the involvement of Scotland for the first time. Because of the new maritime border introduced by the EU in Structural Funds programmes, we have been able to engage with Scotland for the current programming period. We have a very significant and interesting number of projects involving our Scottish partners and that continues to be developed. Our chair was part of a welcoming event in foreign affairs in his previous role in meeting some Members of the Scottish Parliament. Other representatives came over at the beginning of the programme period to acknowledge their involvement in the programme. All that concerns INTERREG IV.
Another part of our role I shall mention — I am happy to take any queries members may have on it — is our role in the common chapter, which is an element of the original provisions for what the Special EU Programmes Body might do. Over the period we have generated a number of reports on the common chapter. The common chapter referred to is in the national development plan of Ireland and the Community Support Framework of Northern Ireland. We had a role in monitoring its implementation and roll-out and the promotion of North South co-operation in a range of different areas. Several reports have been generated on that issue.
We engaged in other activities including the promotion of participation in what are referred to as transnational and inter-regional INTERREG programmes. These refer to opportunities for individuals, institutions and public bodies to engage with other regions throughout Europe. Several of these regions have been formed under the INTERREG banner under which we participate. I refer to the Atlantic area, stretching from the top of Scotland down to the southern tips of Spain and Portugal; north west Europe, which covers the whole of north western Europe, including parts of Germany, France, the Benelux countries, the UK and Ireland; and the northern periphery, which covers the topmost peripheral part of Europe. The system encourages North-South co-operation and participation in projects within these programmes. I refer to a fourth programme, INTERREG IVC, which relates to co-operation with regions throughout Europe. It is based in Lille. We encourage people to become involved in that programme. There is a total of 32 projects to date. Our target for the period is approximately 50 projects and we are well on the way to meeting it.
I refer to another interesting activity which came about as a result of the Northern Ireland taskforce report on relationships between Northern Ireland and elsewhere in Europe. This involves the generation of a network of contacts to share the experiences of the peace programmes with other regions of Europe. Thus far in the development we have worked with representatives in the Basque Country and Cyprus along with several networked organisations throughout Europe which are keen to understand the works and activities of the peace programmes, which we are keen to share.
We have a role in the preparation of future programmes as provided for in the legislation and Acts. The European cohesion policy post 2013 will be responsible for the development and engagement of debate on the policy. That is a matter for the member states but at a certain point SEUPB, the Special EU Programmes Body, will be invited, as it has been in the past, to engage in the process of preparing new programmes for the new programme period. We expect this will take place some time towards the end of next year. On behalf of the two Departments of Finance and the Governments we will engage in an extensive consultation process to roll out an understanding of the new cohesion policy and to identify the opportunities and needs that exist and which can be satisfied by a new generation of programmes. Our role is to develop draft operational programmes and to have them submitted to members states and the Commission for approval, to advise the two Governments in the negotiation and implementation of these programmes and to put in place structures for that to happen. This would also apply if there were a PEACE IV programme. We would expect to have an involvement in any future generation or successors to the current INTERREG or territorial co-operation programmes and that would be post 2013. I thank the committee for its patience. It is difficult to know what to leave out in a presentation such as this and I would be pleased to take any questions or observations.
