European Funding

Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Finance and Personnel – in the Northern Ireland Assembly at 3:45 pm on 14 October 2002.

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Photo of Sean Farren Sean Farren Social Democratic and Labour Party 3:45, 14 October 2002

The current projections indicate that the building sustainable prosperity programme will exceed its expenditure targets, but that the Peace II programme needs to increase its rate of spending to meet the level required by its first target date of 31 December 2003.

All implementation bodies are aware of that position, and the Special EU Programmes Body will monitor the expenditure closely. I have discussed this with the Executive, the North/South Ministerial Council and the Special EU Programmes Body, and I will discuss similar issues with representatives of the intermediary funding bodies later this afternoon.

If necessary, proposals will be put to the monitoring committee about moving money from slower-spending to faster-spending measures. However, we must have some sense of the pattern of spend in the different priority areas. The Special EU Programmes Body, as the managing authority, is examining that.