Vol. 558 No. 1
374 Mr. O'Dowd asked the Minister for Health and Children the moneys available in his Department for RAPID projects; the requests received; the amounts requested; the amounts paid; and the amount included in his budget allocation for RAPID in 2003. [23743/02]
Government policy is that RAPID is to be funded through the prioritisation of the identified areas and the front-loading to them of a significant share of the funding allocated under the national development plan. Agencies have been asked to implement the programme from within their existing resources.
The Department of Health and Children has received 215 proposals in respect of RAPID Strand I, urban areas. Not all of the projects have been costed. Of those that have been costed many have a mixture of both a capital and revenue funding requirement. The cost of the RAPID Strand I proposals for which funding requirements have been detailed, including both capital and year one revenue funding, amounts to approximately €120 million. In some instances there would also be additional costs in future years as some of the revenue funding would recur on an annual basis.
Fifty seven proposals have been received, to date, in respect of RAPID Strand II, provincial towns, at an approximate cost of €25 million in respect of capital and year one revenue funding. These proposals were received in the Department on the 4 November and are currently being processed.
In relation to RAPID Strand I, officials from my Department have written to the RAPID co-ordinators and to the chief executive officers of the relevant health boards-authority to request that they: prioritise the list of projects for their board, paying particular attention to the top five priorities; consider re-prioritisation that could be made on the basis of RAPID type projects from their 2002 allocation and which could be implemented within existing resources; and include as many prioritised RAPID proposals as possible in their service plans for 2003.
An internal group comprising representatives of relevant units within the Department of Health and Children has been established to ensure co-ordination with health board counterparts in service areas for which RAPID proposals have been submitted.
