Cross-Border sport and tourism to benefit from £4m in EU grants

CROSS Border sport and tourism projects are among the beneficiaries of a £4 million grant package allocated under the EU Special Support Programme for Peace and Reconciliation.

Groups to benefit from the funding, announced yesterday in Belfast, include Co-operation North, the Community Relations Council, the Rural Development Council and the Rural Community Network.

The allocation is the latest in a series in which a total of £230 million is to be made available by 1999, £62 million of which is earmarked for "Intermediate Funding Bodies", the non government organisations which are the recipients of the latest round of awards.

The EU is contributing 75 per cent of the money, with the remainder coming from the British and Irish governments.

Several of the groups recognised in the latest round are qualifying for the first time under the programme. These include the Rural Development Council, which is allocated £1.5 million, and Co-operation North, which gets £92,000.

Among the Co-operation North projects being funded is the "Celtic Superhighway", which aims to develop a tourist route linking Clare and Antrim via the west of Ireland and Strabane in Co Tyrone.

A project to allow the 120 member Southill Children's Band from Limerick take part in Belfast's Greater Shankill Community Festival is also recognised, as is a cross Border women's soccer club linking Fermanagh and neighbouring counties in the Republic.

Projects funded under the aegis of the Community Relations Council include a once off grant for an Irish dance interpretation of the Twelfth of July, and the appointment by the Belfast based Worker's Educational Association of an overseer for the development of anti-sectarian education in areas of social disadvantage.

Another beneficiary, the Northern Ireland Voluntary Trust, has been granted just over £1 million, mainly to fund the costs of appointing community development workers to various projects.

The employment of a support officer for Irish speaking families in Derry is one of those to benefit.

The programme's stated objective is to reinforce peace and promote reconciliation through economic development, urban and rural regeneration and cross Border co-operation. It was first announced in the wake of the 1994 ceasefires, but the EU has repeatedly restated its commitment to it since the resumption of IRA violence.

A spokeswoman for the combined distribution agencies said the common denominator among the projects was that they were contributing to the development of a "wholesome and healthy fabric" in the North of Ireland.

She said that, while there were many more grants in the pipeline, a large part of the peace funding was still available.

"We urge anyone who thinks that their activity might be eligible for assistance to contact one of our organisations."