THE first independent report on the EU funding programme for peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland and the Border counties has strongly criticised Government Departments for delays and confusion in its implementation.
The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust's report on the programme acknowledges that it was put together at great speed, became diffused across a wide range of activities and was unusually complex.
However, it says several Government Departments, North and South, have yet to approve their first project under the programme, which has allocated around £240 million since it began 2 1/2 years ago.
"The information collection performance of some departments has been chaotic," says the report's author, independent consultant Mr Brian Harvey. "In the Republic, disorganisation has been compounded by obfuscation which is likely to bring the programme into disrepute."
However, he finds that in Northern Ireland the programme has provided "significant new funding for community development, work with women, activities with children and young people and projects which help ex prisoners."
In the Republic, it has significantly assisted hitherto poorly promoted community development work in the Border counties, and "work to explore cultural and political traditions".
So far, halfway through its five year existence, the programme has assisted over 4,000 projects, with 43.5 percent of the funding channelled through "intermediate funding bodies" including the Combat Poverty Agency, Area Development Management, the Northern Ireland Voluntary Trust and Cooperation North.
The report says such bodies have "demonstrated an ability to deliver a programme rapidly, efficiently, sympathetically and imaginatively."
Mr Harvey criticises the programme design for "confusing the aim of promoting peace and reconciliation on the one hand and investment in Northern Ireland and the Border counties of the Republic on the other."
He blames Government Departments, particularly in the Republic, for information problems which make the programme difficult to assess. "Delay, ill will and obfuscation on the one hand, and inability to use technical assistance for the purpose for which it is intended on the other, poorly serve the purpose of achieving, the objectives of the programme.