New Central Statistics Office figures appear to confirm that the new "region" devised by the Government for EU funding purposes will be just under 75 per cent of EU GDP and will therefore qualify for the maximum Objective 1 funding.
The figures will please the Government, which has been accused by Opposition parties of putting political expediency before the national interest in drawing up this new region.
Through a complex mechanism the CSO estimated the per-capita Gross Value Added (GVA, which is said to be equivalent to GDP) for this new region was 73.3 per cent of the EU average in 1995.
It arrived at this figure through combining the figures for the Border, midland and western regions, and adding the county figures for Kerry and Clare.
However, the CSO conceded yesterday that the county figures were not reliable enough to be regarded as official statistics, were merely broad indicative measures and should be treated with "particular caution".
The CSO "is not in a position to compile accurate estimates for counties because the underlying data are either not available or are not sufficiently robust". It maintained, however, that when figures for a combination of counties are used these reservations become less important and estimates are more accurate and meaningful.
The director of macroeconomic statistics at the CSO, Mr Bill Keating, said yesterday he was confident that the figure of 73.3 per cent would be accepted by Eurostat, which makes the final decision on whether the new region is eligible for Objective 1 funding. However, before the GVA (GDP) figure is considered, Eurostat must first be convinced the new region is genuine, with appropriate structures, rather than an agglomeration of counties being portrayed as a region for funding purposes.
In previous rounds of structural funding, the State as a whole has qualified for Objective 1 status as its GDP was less than 75 per cent of the EU average. However, national GDP is now at 95 per cent of the EU average, and so the Government has sought to define a group of 15 counties as a distinct poorer "region" and seek maximum funding for it.
The Government has come under severe Opposition criticism for breaking up the previous regional structure used for EU purposes. It has added Cos Kerry and Clare to the combined western, midlands and Border regions for the purposes of the funding application. It has been accused of doing this simply to please Government Ministers in those constituencies and in particular the independent backbencher, Mr Jackie Healy-Rae.
The Government's new region consists of the six counties in the Border region (Cavan, Donegal, Leitrim, Louth, Monaghan and Sligo); three in the western region (Galway, Mayo and Roscommon); four in the midlands region (Laois, Longford, Offaly and Westmeath); and Kerry and Clare, taken from the south-west and mid-west regions respectively.
The CSO is in discussion with Eurostat concerning the conversion of the Irish estimates to a common EU standard. However, it said yesterday that any resulting amendments "should be of a relatively minor nature probably amounting to no more than 1 per cent", and the figure would therefore still fall below the 75 per cent threshold.
Labour's finance spokesman, Mr Derek McDowell, maintained yesterday that the figures published yesterday proved the Government's strategy was seriously flawed.
"This proves that the Government is combining unreliable county figures with somewhat more reliable regional figures in order to produce an overall figure that is only slightly less than the maximum allowed under EU rules."