Derek Nolan (Galway West, Labour)
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Question 248: To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if he will provide a breakdown in tabular form of the current round of EU structural funds to Ireland; the amount of financial assistance they will provide in total; the areas to which they will be directed; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4085/12]

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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The purpose of EU Regional/Cohesion policy is to reduce the significant economic, social and territorial disparities that still exist between Europe's regions. The budget for the 2007-2013 round is €347bn. Most of this budget is allocated for those countries and regions whose gross domestic product per capita is less than 75% of EU average (81.5% for convergence objective). The remainder is for all other countries and regions (16.5% for regional competiveness and employment objective) and for cooperation across borders (2.5% for territorial cooperation objective). The overall budget and country allocation is agreed between the EU Commission and Member States in advance of the programming period. Ireland has been allocated in total €901m in Structural Funding for the 2007-13 Programming period with €750 million assigned to the Regional Competitiveness and Employment (RCE) Objective. Ireland's National Strategic Reference Framework (approved by the European Commission in July 2007) sets out the strategic context within which the €750m block of funding may be applied; the delivery is via three operational programmes, the National ESF Human Capital Investment OP, managed by the Department of Education and Skills, and the Border Midland and Western (BMW) and Southern and Eastern Regional ERDF (S&E) OPs, managed by the BMW and S&E Regional Assemblies. The balance of €151m is for smaller Territorial Cooperation programmes including the PEACE III (Ireland/NI), INTERREG IVA (Ireland/NI and Western Scotland) and the Ireland Wales Programme.

For the purposes of EU Structural and Cohesion Funds, Ireland is designated into two NUTS (Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics) II regions, namely the BMW Region and the S&E Region. Of the €750 million allocated to Ireland under the RCE, €458 million has been allocated to the BMW Region (due to its phasing in status – moving from convergence (less developed) to regional competitiveness and employment (more developed) status) and €292 million to the S&E Region.

The annual allocations are set out in the table 1 (attached) below and reflect the full amount of structural funds available to Ireland over the 2007-2013 programming period. Table 2 (attached) sets out the same information broken down by region.

Despite the significant socio-economic challenges, the implementation of the three OPs is progressing satisfactorily and it is anticipated that the overall objectives of each programme will be achieved and that Ireland will maximise its drawdown of the allocated funding.

Negotiations are ongoing at EU level in relation to the next round of EU funding for the 2014-2020 round.

Table 1 - Ireland's indicative financial allocation for NSRF

Table 2 - Ireland's indicative financial allocation for NSRF - regional breakdown