THE Taoiseach has announced that the Minister of State in his Department, Mr Donal Carey will be responsible for overseeing and coordinating all funding for Border regions.
Mr Bruton made the announcement at a reception given to him by Cavan County Council on Monday.
Border deputies of all parties have been concerned about the effectiveness and overlapping nature of funding from European Union programmes such as the Peace and Reconciliation Programme, the structural funds, Interreg and other bodies such as the International Fund for 10 Fianna Fail TDs put down a motion condemning the Government's lack of commitment to the economic development of the region and calling on it to "utilise all available peace initiative funds towards industrial infrastructural development in the Border areas".
Local politicians have voiced a range of concerns. The Cavan Fine Gael TD, Mr Andrew Boylan, said yesterday that nearly 18 months after the cease fires the only significant economic development they had seen in the area was the opening of the Ballyconnell canal.
The Louth Fine Gael TD, Mr Brendan McGahon, said he and his colleagues believed that the International Fund for Ireland's 80/20 per cent split between the North and the Republic's Border counties was unfair, given that the British government had "poured millions of pounds into the North as compensatory payments to offset the economic effects of the violence, while in the South no special government attention has been given to the Border counties
The TDs also believe that the funding from the EU's Peace and Reconciliation Programme should go less into community based schemes and more into industrial infrastructure.
They are unhappy that Dublin based agencies, such as the Combat Poverty Agency and Area Development Management, are being appointed as intermediary bodies to distribute EU funding to community groups, thus bypassing local councils and the councils' umbrella body, the Border Regional Authority.
A delegation of Border TDs met the IDA two months ago and was told that if the IDA could be given £5 million from the EU programme, it would make a huge dent in building a proper industrial infrastructure" for the area, said one of them yesterday.
They were particularly anxious that properly serviced industrial sites should he provided in Cavan and Monaghan.