Mr. Rob Power:

I thank the committee for the time today. It is much appreciated. One of the reasons we are here is that we see this as a very important committee in terms of the influence it has with key Departments, namely, the Department of EU affairs and the Department of public expenditure and reform.

Senator O'Loughlin asked a question about the JTF. As a constituency colleague in Kildare, I know there was some frustration that the MD of the Newbridge-Kildare district was not included in that. A lot of context goes along with that decision. Some of those decisions came from Europe and there was further debate at national level. Many indicators were used to come to the mapping that was arrived at. Initially, we were looking at a scenario where Kildare was not included and it was going to be four counties. It was then expanded and went to an MD level as well, which is where we arrived at that. One of the benefits is that in Kildare we prepared for this scenario and we did a lot of work in looking at the projects that we could potentially fund under the JTF. This preparatory work has been very important and has highlighted a number of areas for future rounds of funding and future progression as well.

The Senator also had a question on where we see priorities for future funding in the context of cohesion funding. One thing that has worked very well at a regional level is the collaboration we have at the local level with the county councils. Using the example of the JTF, one of the key areas where we were able to work with them was to point to local economic and community plans and regional economic plans. This is something that we and the other two assemblies are heavily involved in. We know these plans intricately because we work with the county councils in their implementation. As a result, when funding became available, it was very easy for us to point to that and to decide on a regional basis how this could best be distributed and how we could help support these plans. Regarding future cohesion funding, there is an important role for the regional assembly to play, alongside our county council colleagues, in democratising this funding and making sure it is accountable.