asked the Minister for Finance why no application for financial aid was made by his Department to the EEC Regional Development Fund.
Written Answers . - EEC Regional Development Fund .
27.
: I take it that the Deputy is referring to the current year. It is not correct to say that my Department has made no application this year for financial aid from the European Regional Development Fund. Our first application in respect of 1978 was submitted to the EEC Commission at the beginning of April. The amount of Fund aid sought in respect of the projects in this application is almost £16 million which represents over 60 per cent of this country's total allocation from the Fund for 1978. It is understood, in fact, that with only one exception Ireland's application to date covers a greater percentage of its 1978 allocation than does that of any other member State.
As regards the timing of our application, there has been some press comment about a delay in putting forward projects. I should explain that there was difficulty at the beginning of this year about the submission of projects for assistance from the Fund because of the delay in Brussels in concluding the review of the Fund Regulation. As a number of changes in the Regulation proposed by the Commission were of importance to Ireland, namely the introduction of a system of advance payments, the definition of eligible infrastructure and the rate of aid for infrastructural projects, it was considered desirable to defer the submission of the first batch of projects for Fund assistance until the completion of the review. This was expected by the early part of the year. As soon as it became clear that adoption of the new Regulation would be delayed—in fact the review has not yet been completed—the first batch of projects was submitted to the Commission. They will be considered by the Fund Management Committee at its meet-ing next month. I would emphasise that the implementation of the relevant projects has not been affected.