Vital front-line services in deprived communities across Northern Ireland will be lost if funding is not secured to replace a 300 million euro cut in all-Ireland EU Peace money, it was warned today.
The EU allocation for peace and reconciliation projects across the island will be halved from more than €600 million to €330 million when the seven-year PEACE III programme replaces its predecessor PEACE II this summer.
Frances McCandless from the Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action told MLAs that many communities in the north would be hit hard by the cut and urged the government to make up the shortfall by mainstreaming some of the services now offered by voluntary groups
"This (cut) will undoubtedly lead to the closure of some organisations and the loss of programmes and services upon which some communities have come to depend," she explained to members of Stormont's Finance and Personnel Committee.
Ms McCandless said the sporadic nature of funding in the voluntary sector continued to undermine many groups and said there was a need for long term financial backing.
"People develop skills they have built up over years and then when funding is cut those people disappear and groups have to start from scratch over and over again," she said. "That's not an effective way to spend public money."
Jennifer McCann (Sinn Fein, West Belfast) said she was worried what impact winding up voluntary groups would have on the wider community. "It's not just about groups that are going to go it's about front-line services that are delivering in those communities that will go too," she said.
Dawn Purvis (PUP, East Belfast) said the government needed to step into the breach. "It seems Peace money is doing work that government doesn't want to," she said. "This is a sign that government needs to take on a role in the longer term."
The NICVA Director of Policy also raised concerns that groups that are eligible to have their funding continued under PEACE III will be left without income for a number of weeks while the transition from PEACE II is completed.
Head of DFP's European Policy Division Bill Pauley admitted the timetable was extremely tight for getting funding applications processed before PEACE II comes to an end in June. "I do accept this is a challenging timetable to get that money (PEACE III) flowing by June," he said.
PA