NICVA welcomes minister's announcement on Peace II funding

NICVA Chief Executive, Seamus McAleavey, welcomed the announcement from Minister Ian Pearson that he has rebalanced the Peace II Programme putting back in place over €100 million for spending as part of the original Programme.

Last year Peace II was in danger of losing this amount of money because it could not meet the N+2 target set by the European Commission. In his announcement, the Minister said, “Less than a year ago, there had been serious concerns that the Programme would be unable to spend its available resources within the EU deadlines and that significant funds would have to be returned to Brussels. The Special EU Programmes Body and the Peace II Programme’s many Implementing Bodies responded to this challenge and met the expenditure targets and considerably simplified the operation of the Programme. This is a tremendous achievement and I want to commend all involved for their efforts ".

Mr Pearson continued, "Part of the action plan to meet the expenditure targets involved bringing some areas of departmental expenditure into the Programme that were not originally intended to be financed in this way. When the Monitoring Committee agreed this approach last year, I gave a commitment that I would ‘rebalance’ the Programme by an equivalent to the departmental expenditure involved .”

He went on, “I am pleased to say that the achievement of the Programme’s financial targets has allowed me to meet this commitment in full.”

Some of this departmental expenditure involved bridges and bypasses, as well as capital expenditure for integrated schools. NICVA is now happy that this money has been returned to the Programme intact to be spent on the original Programme requirements. Seamus McAleavey further commented, “NICVA has also lobbied the Minister to move expenditure to parts of the Programme which have performed well particularly in Priority 2 where actions which address the legacy of the conflict fund voluntary and community organisations. Quite a number of these Measures could do with additional resources to extend the work of organisations whose funding is now coming to an end. NICVA believes the Minister, the Special EU Programmes Body and the Monitoring Committee are committed to allocating additional resources to those areas when they identify the appropriate funds .”