Mr. Michael Keatinge:

We had a horizontal meeting of all the FLAGs in November with the European Commission and representatives from the north of England and Scotland also attended. We hope the budget will be increased substantially. I hope whatever administrative framework is put in place, whether in BIM, the Leader programme or whatever else, administrative oversight will facilitate without necessarily drawing funds. We have tried to avoid using the meagre funds available to pay for administration. By doing the work through BIM administration is free.

If it is clear a small part of an area deserves a substantial focus, up to 70% of the budget can be focused on two areas. This is a difficult issue and as a public representative, I must try to balance what I believe are the aspirations along the entire coastline. How does one create a structure which does not rule somebody out in terms of funding and at the same time have a focus which creates a critical mass? What we are trying to do in allowing the 70% rule is to invest a lot of money in a particular area. I could pick any area. Every committee member is from a coastal area and all members know what I am speaking about. If funding is given to someone in north Donegal, people in south Donegal will ask why they have been left out. It is a difficult issue and we hope we are getting the balance right. Our aspiration for the future is to have a bigger budget.

This year no legitimate project which asked for funding was turned down. A problem not only in Axis 4 but also in Axis 2 and Axis 3 is that if we are offering a 50% grant, the other 50% must be provided through private sector funding. In the past two or three years, not unexpectedly, we have seen significant problems in obtaining private sector funding. It is not as though the FLAGs had a bunch of projects this year which were turned down because of a lack of money. We could have funded more projects this year if we had projects to fund. There was money left over. The level of funding, that is, the grant aid rate, is very important. Access to private sector funding is definitely a sticking point. The rules for what may be funded have become tighter and tighter. Where in the past I might have given somebody a grant for structural work on a fishing boat, this is no longer allowed. I cannot give a grant to fix the engine. Many projects have been ruled out and more will be ruled out under the new regulation for the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund. To my mind, the grant aid rate, access to private sector funding and what may be granted aided present much bigger problems than the amount of the funds available.