Community Relations Council

Meeting:                             10.30am Thursday 25^th February 2010

Venue:                                 Pobal Offices, Monaghan

Present:                               Helen Johnson (Chairperson), Mary Cunningham, Jim Deery, Clifford Kelly, Stella McDermott, William Redpath (OFMDFM), Martin Tyrell (DFP).

In attendance:                 Pobal: Paddy McGinn, Colette Nulty, Mandy Traynor (Minutes).

                                                Community Relations Council: Duncan Morrow, Patricia Armstrong, Gordon Walker, Kelan McClelland.

 Apologies:                          Brendan Mackin, Deaglán O’Briain (DCGRA), Tony McCusker, Jackie Witherow, Denis Leamy, Jacqueline Irwin, Adrian McNamee and Sean Henry (SEUPB)

1.        Minutes of the Previous Meeting

The minutes of the meeting of 17^th December 2009 were agreed as presented.

2.        Matters Arising

2.1 The Chair welcomed new Committee members Stella McDermott (CRC), Clifford Kelly (Pobal) and Mary Cunningham (Pobal)

2.2 The Committee were informed that further to there not being a quorum at the last meeting, the decisions made by those present were circulated, by written procedure to all Committee members as agreed and were ratified on the 8^th January 2010.

3.        Update on Progress

3.1 Overview

Due to the attendance of new Committee members an overview on the Peace III Programme and the work undertaken by the Consortium to date was provided.

3.2 Strand 2& 3

The Committee were informed that an evaluation was currently in the process of being commissioned by the SEUPB on the impact of Theme 1.2 of the Peace III Programme. It is envisaged that the Terms of Reference for the evaluation will be agreed by SEUPB and the accountable departments by 10^th March when it will be presented to the Monitoring and Evaluation Committee to progress. The final report is expected to be completed by May 2010.

The Consortium has been instructed by the SEUPB and the Accountable Departments not to reopen calls for applications until this evaluation has been completed.

3.3 Strand 1

The seven projects initially approved by the Committee require an Economic Appraisal (EA) to be undertaken as they are above the delegated limit threshold of €500,000.  The commissioning of these EA’s is normally undertaken by the SEUPB however they have recently confirmed that due to legal and economic constraints they are not in a position to commission EA’s at present. Therefore they have requested that the Consortium undertake this area of work. Although the Consortium wishes to be facilitative of this request a number of concerns re legalities, timeframe and budget need to be addressed prior to an agreement being reached.   

As the application process for Strand 1 commenced in April 2009 there is an urgent need to move this process forward as quickly as possible. In addition, extending the process will have a negative impact on the Strands contribution towards meeting N+2 for 2010.  Whilst the Consortium is open to commissioning EA’s, it is felt that in the interest of progression it would be more efficient for the SEUPB to commission the EA’s for the current Strand 1 projects.

The SEUPB and Consortium staff will be discussing this issue further.

3.4 Financial Update

€23.9m of the €50m indicative budget has been allocated to date under Strand 2+3. An additional €9.2m is currently under assessment under Strand 1, leaving a potential budget remaining of approx €16.9m.  However decommittal of €845,000 is being presented to the Committee today which if agreed will increase the budget remaining figure to €17.7m.

4.        Recommendations for Consideration:

A paper outlining the decommittal process undertaken by Consortium staff was circulated to the Committee. Committee decisions are documented in the summary grid attached.

5.        Dates for 2010 meetings

A number of dates for meetings in 2010 were circulated to the Committee and agreed. The Committee agreed that a separate strategic meeting re the opening of Strand 2+3 should be scheduled. As part of this meeting a paper outlining all projects funded to date, timelines, budget, spend to date and outputs should be circulated to the Committee.

6.        AOB

Date of next meeting – 6^th May 2010 in CRC Belfast. This meeting is subject to the EA process being completed for Strand 1 projects.