Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I have one brief comment. Senator Craughwell referred to the rush of applications, and I do not want that to go on the record uncorrected. It does a disservice to people who have been working on applications to draw down funding under the INTERREG and Peace programmes. Many of us on this committee have assisted various groups in this regard. It takes a considerable length of time to put together a programme that merits consideration. There is a huge amount of research and background work before one can submit an application. It is not as if a deadline was given to every group to put together an application, send it off and hope to succeed.

We should tell the British Government and European Commission officials that agreement was reached between sovereign governments and the Commission to provide a level of funding for the Peace programme and the INTERREG programme. Those programmes should continue to work as planned, prior to any decision by the British people to leave the EU. It is not a matter of people sending an application off in the post and trying to get it in before a deadline. A huge amount of good work has been done by many voluntary groups and statutory agencies in preparing applications seeking to draw down funding.