Brian O'Shea (Waterford, Labour)
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Question 67: To ask the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs his proposals to implement the recommendations of the Committee of Public Accounts that objectives, targeted results and funding priority for the RAPID programme should be more precisely documented; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18228/06]

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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My Department, supported by Pobal, co-ordinates the implementation of the RAPID programme. As part of its co-ordinating role, my Department receives regular updates on the implementation of the programme. These updates range from informal ad hoc updates to reports prepared for the quarterly RAPID national monitoring committee which I chair. These reports can be accessed at www.pobal.ie.

The Committee of Public Accounts found that a recurring difficulty with the RAPID programme since its launch in 2001 is the different levels of expectation as to what the programme should produce. It recommended that the objectives, targeted results and funding priority for the RAPID programme should be more precisely documented. I will take the views and recommendations of the committee into account in the ongoing development of the RAPID programme.

As is clear from paragraph 4.4 of the report, my Department is well aware of the concern expressed by the Committee of Public Accounts and, as already indicated to the House following discussions with my Department, Pobal has initiated a formal evaluation of the programme. As I have indicated previously, the new, refocused RAPID programme provides a long-term model to support disadvantaged communities and should continue into the future.

Brian O'Shea (Waterford, Labour)
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Does the Minister agree that the co-ordination of the RAPID programme by his Department is a complete mess? In regard to the recurrent difficulty outlined by officials from his Department to the Committee of Public Accounts in respect of the different expectations as to what the programme should produce, is it the Minister's view that the RAPID programme should provide for the front-loading of resources under the national development plan for targeted areas of disadvantage or should it enable substantial additional funding, not restricted to projects outlined in the NDP, to be pumped into the RAPID areas?

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I do not agree the RAPID programme is a mess. However, I concede that in its initial phase, when groups were asked to draw up plans, the criteria were perhaps not clear enough and the plans were cumbersome and, in certain respects, insufficiently focused. The strand two plans, however, were much more focused on what was achievable.

Consultants have been examining the issue of trying to quantify the scope of measures which were additional to those which would have been introduced in the RAPID areas under the national development plan. This is a challenging task and the Department will examine the issue in the 2007 iteration of the programme.

As the Deputy will be aware, under the original RAPID programme the intention was to match the National Development Plan, 2000 to 2006. As we approach 2007, the review carried out by the Committee of Public Accounts and another review currently under way are proving useful in guiding the Department on what changes should take place.

In the years since I became Minister with responsibility for the RAPID programme, I have made a number of significant changes. For example, I introduced the leverage fund which has had a significant impact on the ground. I incrementally increased the involvement of the local RAPID committees — area implementation teams or AITs — in the process because they were making day-to-day decisions. We also provided that a significant amount of the dormant accounts fund would be ring-fenced for RAPID areas, which recently received an allocation from the fund towards small projects that would otherwise have fallen through the cracks.

The Department has been building incrementally on a good idea, analysing the difficulties encountered in the programme — in this regard the analysis of the Committee of Public Accounts has been useful — and continuously improving the programme. The general feedback I am receiving from RAPID committees, representatives of which I will meet on 1 June, is that they believe the programme has delivered and made an impact in the areas in which it operates. They have also given me ideas on how to improve the programme.

Brian O'Shea (Waterford, Labour)
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The Minister did not address the statement made by officials from his Department at a meeting of the Committee of Public Accounts. Does he believe the purpose of the RAPID programme is to front-load funding for projects within the national development plan or to attract funds for programmes which do not feature in the NDP? Given that this matter was raised by departmental officials at a meeting of the Committee of Public Accounts, it must be a major problem. The Minister has given no indication as to how he views it or intends to tackle it in the new national development plan.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I thought it was self-evident that we have gone far beyond the national development plan in the way in which we have operated the RAPID programme. Neither the leverage fund nor the dormant accounts issue arose under the NDP. RAPID is also about co-ordinating the various agencies to get a better and more co-ordinated delivery.

Within a national development plan, front loading means that in the 2000 to 2006 period, for example, one receives the money between 2002 and 2004 rather than between 2004 and 2006. That would not be a major gain. I am concerned about additionality, that at the end of the next national development plan, we will be able to state clearly how much extra money was invested in the RAPID areas over and above what those areas would have received had there been no such scheme, because every area receives money from the national development plan.

There are two issues: front loading, which means early payment, and what one might call uploading or giving more money to areas with greater problems. The first issue is only a temporary palliative but I am focusing on the second issue. We need better ways of measuring that system because some Departments have done better than others in delivering. As chairman of the national monitoring committee, I have made it clear that we need to see results from mechanisms that demonstrate there is an extra benefit in being in RAPID and in the roll-out of various programmes under the national development plan.

Séamus Pattison (Carlow-Kilkenny, Labour)
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I remind the House that supplementary questions are limited to two minutes.