Funding blunder ‘jeopardises hundreds of jobs’

HUNDREDS of food-related rural jobs are on ice due to the state’s bureaucratic blunder in placing around €25 million in EU funds into a non-food category, according to Kilkenny LEADER Partnership.

Partnership chief executive, Declan Rice, said 35 people have been denied jobs in Kilkenny alone as he has had to refuse funding to 17 micro-enterprise projects. These include a distillery, a bakery, a sausage producer, a cookery school, a food-packing facility, a food retreat and a salad dressing start-up.

The LEADER groups are becoming increasingly annoyed at the Government’s failure to find a solution to the problem, which came to light in January.

Other EU countries have made the same mistake, unwittingly placing Common Agricultural Policy funds into food-focused “Axis 3” rather than LEADER project-focused “Axis 1”.

Declan Rice said: “This funding crisis is disastrous for business development and job creation in Kilkenny and across Ireland. A lot of EU countries have made the same mistake, but most of them are not as dependent on food projects are we are in Ireland. Nationally, we will now have to find €25m in seed money from elsewhere to put into Axis 1.

“You’d think it would be simply a matter of lifting it out of Axis 3 and putting it into Axis 1, but that isn’t an option. We were told in January this would be sorted out quickly, but it seems there’s a lot of horse-trading to be done yet.”

Mr Rice is to highlight the issue again at a food industry seminar entitled: The Irish Food Industry; Policies at National and Regional Level, on October 28, in The Parade Tower, Kilkenny Castle, to coincide with the opening of the Savour Kilkenny Food Festival.

Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government Phil Hogan will officially open the seminar.