Vol. 509 No. 3
106 Ms Shortall asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the reason for the cessation of the new opportunities for women programme at the end of 1999 in view of the fact that the programme is to be extended in other EU countries; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [20193/99]
The employment initiative, of which NOW is a strand, has operated in two phases in the current structural fund period: 1995-97 and 1997-99. Some 32 NOW projects are operating in the current phase which commenced with a project development phase – PDP – of three months in 1997. Projects were subsequently approved for a two year period to implement their action plans.
Because of delays in receiving European Social Fund aid at the end of 1998 and earlier this year, the option of an extension into 2000 to complete project activity was discussed with all NOW projects in the course of project visits over the past number of weeks. To date, three projects have sought extensions and these will be granted.
My Department is anxious to ensure that the current round of projects complete activity early in 2000 to allow for the learning from the projects to feed into the next human resource initiative, EQUAL, which is currently under discussion with the European Commission.
