MEP has useful Meeting with DSD Minister
09 October 2007
Jim Allister MEP today met Social Development Minister, Margaret Ritchie in Brussels.
Commenting Mr Allister said, "We had a useful meeting focussing on the funding opportunities for DSD issues under the 2007-13 Financial Perspective. I was pleased that the Minister saw as the priority, in PEACE expenditure, projects capable of delivering lasting economic benefit. I stressed my view that hitherto too much PEACE funding had been wasted on froth.
We also discussed the need to encourage community infrastructure, particularly in minority Protestant areas. In this regard I see scope for sensible use of DSD's Modernisation Fund and Shared Spaces programme to help better equip community facilities, including orange halls where such are the hub of community interaction.
I commended the Minister on her robust stand against the advancement of paramilitarism and discussed alternative, non-paramilitary, funding opportunities in loyalist areas."
ENDS
