Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 18 January 2024

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement

PEACEPLUS Programme: Special EU Programmes Body

Ms Gina McIntyre:

Yes. We have technical assistance which is an overall percentage of the programme, but as the Deputy can imagine, given the scale of the programme, it is large. We have a large administration budget. Unfortunately, we do not have an NSMC sitting at the minute, and it makes decisions on our staffing. We had a staffing review that indicated we needed much more staff to roll out this programme effectively and efficiently within the timescale because it is running behind, and we cannot get that decision made. Therefore, we are relying on temporary resources and that is not sustainable from a corporate point of view either in terms of governance or knowledge retention. We do use external people to help us to roll out some of the information but the committee members are looking at the resources that do a lot of the engagement directly with councils. We have been running a series of roadshows. We had about six running up to Christmas time. We run adverts and use social media a lot but regarding, as Mr. Beattie described it, boots on the ground and getting out, we are doing what we can in the series of calls and are hoping, particularly in the small grants, that Pobal and the Northern Ireland delivery partner will be able to do a lot more engagement within the communities as well. However, there is a gap developing in our numbers and how fast we can roll the programme out and conclude the other ones.

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