EU funding for peace fund urged

THE Taoiseach, Mr Bruton, yesterday admitted that obtaining renewal of EU funding for the Northern Ireland Pence Fund in, 1998-99 would be an uphill struggle. The £240 million fund was originally established for five years, but funding has been earmarked for only the first three.

With financial cutbacks affecting the whole EU budget, there are concerns that the Commission will seek to use already allocated structural funds to make up the bulk of the next two years £160 million. "We will have to work very hard to get the extra money," the Taoiseach said.

Mr Bruton, who was in Brussels for meetings with Commissioners and a "summit" of leaders of the European People's Party, also dismissed suggestions that the single currency would not start on time in January 1999.

"I do not believe postponement will occur. It will happen on time," he said, "with Ireland taking part."

Speaking of his five fellow prime ministers at the EPP summit, including the German Chancellor, Dr Helmut Kohl, he said: "I haven't the slightest doubt that the political will exists and will be delivered on time to go ahead with the single currency in 1999 ... That is the important thing, the political will."

The Taoiseach's key meeting of the day was with the Regional Affairs Commissioner, Ms Monika Wulf-Mathies, to discuss the future of structural funding in Ireland from 1999 to 2004 and the immediate problems facing the Northern Ireland peace fund.

Although Ms Wulf-Mathies would not admit that there are proposals to siphon off structural funds for the peace fund, she said they were looking at all options and appealed for the Taoiseach's support in her efforts to ensure that "new" funding continues.

Mr Bruton argued that it was crucial, at a time when serious US support was being sought, that the EU be prepared to show that it was providing cash to the peace fund and the International Fund for Ireland, whose funding is also in jeopardy.

He admitted the Irish "take" of structural funding would decline in the period after 1999 but insisted that a special case could still be made for Ireland on the basis of its exceptional dependence on agriculture, the discrepancy between the GNP and GDP figures, and the reality that the EU got a better rate of return on money invested in Ireland than elsewhere.

The Commissioner said she was delighted to see that Ireland had made such good use of the cash. "Ireland is our success story," she said, and that was now reflected in the State converging on the EU average income and significant falls in unemployment.

It was as direct a hint as possible that the purse strings will be tighter in the future, but she also insisted that there could not be any sudden shocks to the system. "We do not intend to undo with the left hand what we have so diligently built with the right."

Mr Bruton also had a discussion on the treaty-changing Inter-Governmental Conference with the President of the Commission, Mr Jacques Santer, and on BSE with the Agriculture Commissioner, Mr Franz Fischler.