The cross-Border bodies established under the Belfast Agreement will employ almost 900 people and cost a total of £65 million under proposals to be presented to the Dail and the Northern Ireland Assembly.
The bodies which have gained the most funding are Waterways Ireland with £25 million, the language body with £15.23 million and the Trade and Business Development Body with £11.5 million. The biggest employers will be Waterways Ireland, with 362 personnel, and the Foyle, Carlingford and Irish Lights Commission with 360.
The proposals were approved yesterday by ministers from both governments acting under the umbrella of the North-South Ministerial Council.
The Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, the North's SDLP Agriculture Minister, Ms Brid Rodgers, and Mr Sam Foster, the UUP Minister of the Environment, approved the budgets at a meeting of the council in Antrim.
Legal action by the Northern Ireland Health Minister, Ms Bairbre de Brun, over a ban on Sinn Fein ministers attending North-South meetings, will get under way next week, it was learned last night.
Ms de Brun has named the First Minister, Mr David Trimble, and the Deputy First Minister, Mr Seamus Mallon, as respondents in her judicial review application in the High Court in Belfast. However, before the case can proceed, leave has to be granted; Mr Justice Kerr has arranged a hearing for next Tuesday.
Ms de Brun's Sinn Fein ministerial colleague, Mr Martin McGuinness, is also seeking a judicial review.