Marian Harkin (Sligo-Leitrim, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank everybody. I know some who are present reasonably well while some other faces are newer to me. A lot of the ground has been covered. I could not agree more with what Senator Keogan said about the need for contact with both members and officials in county councils. I remember going to county councils as an MEP. We were supposed to be the people coming with all the information. What happened a lot of the time, however, was the discussion got bogged down in some minutiae of the Common Agricultural Policy, CAP, or something like that, and we never dealt in any comprehensive way with the overview of funding, what might be available, and what might be suitable. In truth, many of us just did not have enough expertise. The witnesses have it, as it is their business and what they work in.

We know about some funds but it is about putting it all together to see what works. I understand from what Ms Power said that the Southern Regional Assembly seems to be up and running with a lot of that but, again, the witnesses are the ones who can tell us what is there and where the gaps are because none of us are clear on that. I do not know. It is to fill those gaps. I remember there was an outer regions office in Brussels at one time. What it did was a big help but it was only a start and it then disappeared, or the work it was doing finished. That was a real loss at the time. From listening to our guests, a lot of work is now being done. Where do they still see the gaps? How do they think those gaps can be plugged?

My next question is on match funding. Ms Power referenced other countries, such as the Netherlands and Germany, which have programmes in place to help smaller groups in the community and voluntary sector with match funding to alleviate the cofinancing burden for them. Do we have anything like that here? Depending on her answer, at another point, the committee might look at whether work needs to be done on that. There is a lot the representatives can do and are doing but there is some stuff we could look at or propose.

On simplified cost options and the lump sum etc., I do not expect a comment on this but I will make a comment. For what it is worth, my experience was that we were never very good in this country at any kind of trust-based systems. I am not saying that one should only have trust-based systems, but I always felt there was a real reticence, and control had to kept and fingerprints had to be over every single euro that was spent. At one level, people might with justification say this is taxpayers' money and we need to know how it is spent but, equally, we were excellent at it here. Are we now moving in a controlled way towards the simplified cost options within certain programmes? Is it making any difference?

I am one of the people who had to vote every year on the Court of Auditors report. There was 3% or 4% fraud in one sector and maybe slightly higher in others. Many people used to scream very loudly about this fraud but, in some cases, fraud might be where money was used for a project but not in the way it was outlined on the original application form. Something might have changed a little. It is not that the money went into somebody's back pocket. Sometimes it did, but sometimes the response to what the Court of Auditors report stated was over the top. That is another story.

A proposal to ring-fence some money, especially from the European Social Fund, ESF+, for example, for the community and voluntary sector was made. Is any of that happening? If not, again, maybe that is something the committee might like to have a look at. It is again a situation where we have got smaller community and voluntary groups with, very often, not just enthusiasm, but real expertise and commitment, as we know. However, they are just not able to access the funding. Those who are better resourced, as was said, already have the capacity to do so, and good luck to them because they need it, but it is then harder for other groups to gain a foothold there. Ring-fencing was a suggestion. Is there any other? How much of any of that is going on?

My final question is for the Southern Regional Assembly and Northern and Western Regional Assembly representatives. Were both assemblies able to absorb all of the funding that was available in the latest round of regional funds?