Dr. Travis O'Doherty:

I agree with that point. For the Atlantic area programme, there is €17,000 in preparation costs available but that is only granted if a project is successful. If it is unsuccessful, the beneficiary has to pay that cost. I will make one other point on how Ireland is doing in comparison to other EU states as regards the drawdown of funds. The three regional assemblies produced a report in 2018, so it is now a few years old. It looked at how Ireland was drawing down EU funds. It was broken down by county, by fund and by priority and the report gave a good picture of how Ireland is drawing down funds and which organisations, sectors and priorities they were targeted towards. It is available on the website of the Northern and Western Regional Assembly and probably on those of the other regional assemblies. It is on the impact of European territorial co-operation funds. There is an EU cohesion data portal that would probably provide a comparison between Ireland and other member states with regard to how much Ireland is drawing down. In the programmes for which we provide the contact point, Ireland is doing quite well. We are certainly holding our own against other countries in those programme areas.