Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Leas-Cathaoirleach. I take this opportunity to acknowledge all of his work in this area. His work in the past in regard to peace and INTERREG programmes and indeed as a predecessor of mine in regard to cohesion policy and all the excellent work he did on behalf of Ireland during his period in government. His period in government goes back to the 1990s and after the formation of this Department in 2011, all of that work has left a lasting legacy. There are a number of key priorities as we move forward with the new PEACEPLUS programme, one of which is to ensure that the programme is accessible. We now have a draft programme that we are on the cusp of submitting to the European Commission. We expect a rapid evaluation and assessment of the programme by the Commission because there has been ongoing contact, and the chef de cabinet, Commissioner Ferreira came before the committee before Christmas as well. We are hopefully going to be in a position formally to launch PEACEPLUS in the first half of this year, as early as possible in the first half of this year. That is the objective.

One of the key priorities will be to make sure that this funding goes to where it is really needed and where it will make a significant impact. I have discussed this with my colleague, Conor Murphy, on a number of occasions. We are anxious that the funding will be as accessible as possible to marginalised communities in particular. We have placed a keen focus on the issue of grass-roots accessibility. Therefore a programme of pre-funding support is already under way, and training for applicants. We see that as an important process of simplifying the application procedures insofar as we possibly can. It is also important to highlight that the two new small grants programmes now included in PEACEPLUS are designed to allow smaller organisations and groups to access the programme with minimum bureaucracy because very often the accusation is made that there is too much red tape and bureaucracy. Where a significant amount of EU funding is involved there will always be compliance work and regulations that must be adhered to. Having said that, within that framework we are anxious, and the SEUPB is also, to minimise the amount of bureaucracy. Pobal will be involved in administering these small grant schemes on behalf of the SEUPB. Local authorities will also have an important role in regard to delivering projects in PEACEPLUS. Each local authority will be asked to develop a PEACEPLUS community action plan. The SEUPB is already providing pre-development support to councils to start this work. A total of €110 million is available for the action plans.

I will touch on the issue of programme implementation and give an outline of the structure, how decisions are made and ongoing monitoring. The SEUPB will be the managing authority for the PEACEPLUS programme. This role will include responsibility for selecting projects, managing payments and claims, monitoring and reporting. Programme delivery will be overseen by a programme monitoring committee. A governance structure is required under EU regulations. The programme governing committee will include Northern and Southern representatives from central and local government, business, trade union, community and voluntary sector, environment, rural equality, youth and health sector organisations. It has a wide reach and is intended to be as representative as possible of the communities where we hope this programme will have the greatest impact. My Department and the Department of Finance in Northern Ireland are the member state representatives on the monitoring committee. PEACEPLUS will be implemented by individual projects that are awarded following thematic calls for applications issued by SEUPB. Those calls will commence promptly once the programme has been approved by the European Commission. That formal application stage will get underway in the coming months.

I want to use this opportunity to highlight and build a profile of PEACEPLUS within all the communities of the Border counties and throughout Northern Ireland because the opportunity actually to apply for this funding will be coming on stream quite quickly. In addition, a steering committee appointed by the programme monitoring committee is responsible for project selection. This committee will decide to accept or reject project applications using application information and assessment reports produced by the SEUPB. Steering committees include representatives from the member states and the relevant sectoral Departments, North and South. We expect that most calls for applications will be launched this year and next year and that programme expenditure will continue beyond the programme period and will likely run to 2029. The SEUPB has already commenced pre-application support to facilitate early mobilisation of the PEACEPLUS programme following its approval by the Commission.

Just to give an example, a workshop for potential applicants for the PEACEPLUS youth programme was held on 10 December last year, with the SEUPB as appointed consultants who are currently working with local authorities of the programme area on the design of their PEACEPLUS community peace action plan. To be fair, SEUPB and the relevant Departments are doing all that we can to make sure that this programme hits the ground running as soon as we have approval from the European Commission in the coming months. We look forward to seeing the money start to flow to communities and to getting this formal application process under way as soon as possible.