Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 9 Nov 1999

Vol. 510 No. 3

Written Answers. - EU Funding.

Thomas P. Broughan

Ceist:

111 Mr. Broughan asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if urgently needed EU funding will be drawn down and transmitted to a NOW project (details supplied) in Dublin north-east in view of the fact that approved funding of nearly £70,000 has not been paid since May 1999. [22673/99]

Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (Ms Harney)

The EMPLOYMENT Initiative, of which NOW is a strand, has been operating since 1995 and will continue until end of 1999-early 2000. A payment of £6,064 has recently issued to the project in relation to its 1998 final claim.

Projects have been paid their first advance – 50 per cent – of their 1999 allocation. In order to apply for the second tranche of funding, an expenditure threshold of 25 per cent of the programme's allocation for 1999 had to be reached. The required level of expenditure was reached by the end of July and a claim was made to the European Commission early in August.

While a tranche of funds for the EMPLOYMENT Initiative was received from the European Commission on 29 October and is currently being processed, the amount of European Social Funds received was not sufficient to meet all outstanding project claims. However, I expect that a further payment will be made to the project in the next couple of weeks.

My Department has made a further claim to the European Commission for the outstanding amounts and I would like to assure the Deputy that as soon as further advances are received, payments will issue promptly.