Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 13 June 2006
247 Ms Harkin asked the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources the amount which has been spent in the Border Midland Western region since the beginning of the National Development Plan under sub-measure tourism and recreational angling; and if any of this money has been reallocated to other programmes. [22419/06]
View answerAs I outlined in my reply to Question No. 274 of 28 February 2006, the expenditure incurred under the Tourism and Recreational Angling Measure (TRAM) of the National Development Plan (2000-2006) to the end of 2002 was €504,025 for the BMW region. There was no expenditure in 2003, 2004 or 2005 and no expenditure has been provided for the measure in the Department's budget for 2006.
The mid term review of the NDP by the ESRI concluded that the external environment with regard to the tourist sector had deteriorated to an extent where the likely return to further investment in the sector was unlikely to have high returns. As a result funding for TRAM was diverted to higher priority tourism projects.
