Ms Orlaigh Quinn:

I thank the Chairman and committee members for giving me the opportunity to make this introductory statement on the matters it has requested to be addressed.

The Department of Social Protection is leading in the negotiations on this proposal at EU level, given its role in the specialised field of social policy at the Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council, EPSCO. The Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government will have primary responsibility for implementation of the measures contained in the regulation if and when it is approved.

The European Commission's recently published proposal for a regulation on the Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived was published on 24 October and presented to the European Council's social questions working group by the Commission on 23 November. The proposal is based on the previous EU experience of this type of programme. It has a tradition dating back to 1987 of releasing intervention stocks of food to the poorest people in member states. This was, for the most part, distributed by agriculture Departments using networks of NGOs and organisations involved in the relief of the poor. With changes in how the Common Agricultural Policy operates, the levels of intervention food stocks have become unpredictable or non-existent. However, the Commission is very keen to continue its support for people at the margins of society and thus, this proposal has emerged. The key objective of the regulation is to contribute to the Europe 2020 poverty target of having 20 million fewer people in poverty. The proposal calls for a fund of €2.5 billion over seven years for the 28 member states to help to address this difficult social problem. The proposal is being made under Article 175.3 of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union relating to promoting social cohesion. The specific objective is to alleviate the worst forms of poverty by providing non-financial assistance in the form of food and other goods.

As the regulation is drafted, there is scope allowing member states to provide a number of forms of support and the Commission has indicated that it would like a flexible approach to be adopted to enable member states to implement their own arrangements to deliver the funding. It is leaving it up to member states to decide whether to target directly or indirectly and how to define the target group. The fund will be implemented by shared management and the regulation tries to keep implementation as simple and as flexible as possible. It is envisaged that most member states will rely on existing channels for such support and use a combination of public and voluntary bodies to distribute the aid.

In terms of financing, the overall budget is not significant in EU or national terms. However, depending on how the fund is eventually distributed and how narrowly focused the measures in an operational programme might be, the impact could be significant. Member states will also be required to co-finance the operational programme up to a possible 15%, with special criteria applying to programme countries. As for the likely sum of money Ireland may receive, I have no information on that matter yet. However, we believe the amount will be small, but it could make a significant contribution if used narrowly. The Commission proposes using allocation criteria based on two indicators, namely, the number of people in severe material deprivation and the number in households with low work intensity and how this has changed in past three years.
I again thank the committee for giving me this opportunity to outline the proposal which is at an early stage of development. I ask the committee to note that in our role as President we will not be in a position to take a national position; instead we will be taking a neutral stance on the merits of the proposal but with the objective of ensuring successful negotiations deliver an outcome at the earliest opportunity. While we are aware some member states do have reservations about certain aspects, this is not unusual at this point.

On the issue of subsidiarity, the Department has formed a view that such matters do not arise in that the proposed regulation will replace existing arrangements with similar objectives, albeit with different methods of implementation. The proposal is consistent with existing policies of the European Union, particularly cohesion policy and the aims of the European Social Fund. Member states are not under an obligation to implement the actions called for under the proposal. However, the funding cannot be used for other purposes if not drawn down. The amount of funding is small in terms of the overall funding available under the European Social Fund. We are only at the preliminary stage of discussion of this proposal, on which we are working closely with colleagues in the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government.

I thank members for their attention and will be pleased to answer whatever questions they may have.