asked the Minister for Labour the amount of the Social Fund which has not been taken up by the State for each year since Ireland joined the EEC.
Written Answers. - EEC Social Fund.
512.
Particulars of claims in respect of European Social Fund grants approved for Irish operations in the years 1973 to 1976 are as follows:
|
Year of Operation |
Amount Approved |
Amount Claimed |
Amount Unclaimed |
|
£ (million) |
£ (million) |
£ (million) |
|
|
1973 |
4.1 |
3.6 |
0.5 |
|
1974 |
7.0 |
5.7 |
1.4 |
|
1975 |
9.4 |
7.0 |
2.4 |
|
1976 |
13.0 |
11.0 |
2.0 |
Precise information about unclaimed amounts of approved grants in respect of years after 1976 is not available, as some claims for payments in respect of operations carried out in those years are still outstanding. The preparation of payments claims is a matter in the first instance for the individual organisations responsible for carrying out the programme of operations for which Social Fund assistance has been approved. These organisations include bodies in both the public and the private sectors. There is inevitably a time lag, which varies from case to case, between the date of completion of a programme and the submission of a claim for payment of Social Fund grant as the promoting body is required in each case to provide full information about the operations carried out and details of the expenditure incurred on those operations.
The discrepancies between the amounts of Social Fund grants approved and eventually claimed arise principally because the amounts approved are maximum amounts based on programmes set out in applications for assistance submitted in advance whereas amounts claimed must be based on operations actually carried out and expenditure incurred. Thus, the full amounts of Social Fund assistance approved cannot be claimed where programmes are cancelled, postponed or reduced in scale. The extent to which approved grants can be claimed depends, therefore, on the ability of individual promoters to carry out the work for which grants have been approved.