€58.4m in funds not spent despite jobless blackspots

CONCERN was expressed last night after it emerged that the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment had failed to spend €58.4 million of its 2003 budgetary allocation despite there being “unemployment blackspots” throughout the country.

Members of the Dáil Public Accounts Committee (PAC) demanded to know why significant sums earmarked for promoting jobs and training had not been fully spent.

Enterprise Ireland - an arm of the department responsible for promoting industry - was given €62.9 million to distribute to businesses in the form of grants. But some €13.5m of it was not distributed, and was instead returned to the department.

Similarly, IDA Ireland - which has responsibility for securing overseas investment - was allocated €90.2m to give to businesses. But some €7m of this was returned to the department.

About €6.3m was allocated to the Equal Community Initiative Development programme, but €1.5m went unused.

Under the programme, community development partnerships help those “subject to exclusion, discrimination and inequalities in connection with the labour market” to find jobs. Fine Gael TD Tom Hayes said it was hard to understand how there could be such underspending when there were unemployment blackspots nationwide. Sending back money was “crazy” when this was the case, he added.

“You’re not spending money the Government has actually allocated,” he told officials from the department who were present.

Fianna Fáil TD John McGuinness queried whether various departmental initiatives were “advertised well enough” for businesses and communities to realise various forms of funding were available.

However, the secretary general of the department, Seán Gorman, said funding was “very much demand-led.” Estimating the demand for funding was an “imprecise science,” he added.

Some projects which were funded simply achieved budgetary efficiencies, he said, and did not require as much money as had been first thought. Others had suffered delays because of planning problems or similar issues.

“There is a reality there that projects have to come forward,” he said. “You just can’t push money out.”

Meanwhile, Mr Gorman said the department’s lawyers would attempt in the High Court on Monday to lift the injunction on a labour inspector’s report into alleged underpayments of workers by Gama.