Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 6 April 2017

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs

Development and Co-operation in Border Counties: Discussion

2:25 pm

Mr. John Greer:

Ms McIntyre has touched on this. I will outline the process of drawing down the money. When an organisation has been awarded the funding, we try to make it as lightweight as it can possibly be, while recognising the fact that this is, at its core, taxpayers' money. We have used various strategies to do that. One relates to simplified costs. For example, in the case of children and young people, the staff portion is essentially 40%. In other words, that portion of the direct project activity automatically funds the staff. After that, as long as we can establish that the project activities are current, the 40% will flow. Again, that is because we want the money being directed to the project activities in children and young people rather than the administration of the grant. The simplified cost option is something that we are spreading across the programme wherever we possibly can to reduce the administrative burden. Unfortunately, as much as we want to make it lightweight, we must recognise the fact that this is public money.

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