Jerry Cowley (Mayo, Independent)
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Question 299: To ask the Minister for Finance what have the group of western Ministers called together to overview the spending and drawdown for the Border, midland, western region of the national development plan fund; the emergency plan the Government has in place for the Border, midland, western region; the disbursement plans of national development plan funds which are in place for the west; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10362/06]

Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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I take it that the group of Ministers to which the Deputy is referring is the group which was established in 1997 by the previous Government to perform a specific task. It was established to facilitate regular contact between the then Minister of State with special responsibility for rural development and ministerial colleagues from the west on matters of concern to the Western Development Commission in its work towards promoting the economic and social development of the western region. In regard to the second element in the Deputy's question, there is in fact no such plan.

Regarding disbursements, the national development plan is delivered through a number of operational programmes in the BMW region. These are directly managed and implemented by Departments, the BMW regional assembly and other agencies. Investments in the BMW region will continue under the national development plan until the end of 2006 with respect to Exchequer only funded projects and to the end of 2008 for projects co-funded by the Structural Funds. I draw the Deputy's attention to my reply to Question No. 105 of 9 March 2005 in which I outlined my Department's responsibility with respect to resources for the national development plan. Departments have been asked to ensure that the investment objectives for the BMW region are prioritised.

Table 1 sets out the indicative expenditure profiles and the estimated expenditure incurred under each operational programme in the Border, midland and western, BMW, region.

Profiles and Expenditure data includes all NDP sources of funding: Exchequer, EU and private.

As the vast bulk of NDP spending is financed by the Exchequer, table 2 sets out the indicative expenditure profiles and estimated expenditure by the Exchequer for the same period in the BMW region for the operational programmes.

The expenditure data presented in the tables relate to the period from January 2000 to the end of June 2005, the latest data reported to the operational programme monitoring committees. The 2005 annual expenditure profiles have been reduced by half in calculating the profile. However, the Deputy will be aware that significant expenditure, particularly Exchequer expenditure, takes place in the latter half of the year. The position will become clearer when expenditure data to the end of December 2005 become available in April prior to the spring meetings of the monitoring committees.

The Deputy will note from the data presented in table 2 that the Exchequer contribution to the BMW region under the key economic and social infrastructure operational programme, ESIOP, is very near to profile. Performance of the employment and human resource operational programme, EHROP, is also on course. Both programmes are likely to achieve the NDP targets for Exchequer expenditure.

The performances of the productive sector and the BMW regional operational programmes remain disappointing due a number of factors such as poor demand for a number of schemes, particularly in the agricultural sector. Spending on research and development has also been less than profile owing to initial excess optimism in relation to the timing of expenditure in the region. There has also been poorer than expected private sector involvement in these programmes. The underspend in the BMW regional operational programme is also a feature of the equivalent operational programme in the southern and eastern region. These operational programmes and the PEACE programme are unlikely to achieve their end 2006 targets. However, it should be noted that considerable EU co-funded expenditure will continue on these programmes until the end of 2008.