Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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Again, we are very anxious to have a PEACE IV programme. This is difficult because it is a joint programme. The bid is made jointly with the United Kingdom, in terms of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and there was a strong view by the British authorities that they wanted to decrease the overall envelope of expenditure within the Union so they did not want to ask overtly for an additional allocation. I have recently engaged in extensive dialogue with members of the British Government about that and I am very glad that there will be a PEACE IV programme. It is very important in terms of North-South co-operation. There are still residual issues that need to be addressed in bedding down peace. We cannot take that for granted. The programme to date has been hugely successful in terms of bedding down the peace in communities. One of the initiatives taken by the EU Commissioner for Regional Policy, Johannes Hahn, was to consider a number of projects in Brussels and I made a presentation there. I was very privileged to be there. Also in attendance were the First Minister and Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland. The peace funding is administered by the Special EU Programme Body, SEUPB, and that is the funding we have provided for here. It has 62 staff and they monitor the programmes. They have done a very good job to date.