§ Mr. Bradfordasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will list the dates of statements made by the Minister responsible for health and social services in Northern Ireland, regarding extra expenditure for projects of his Department from 1975; if he will list the projects envisaged; how many have been completed and how many remain to be completed; what has been the total expenditure for the completed schemes; and what the outstanding projects will cost.
§ Mr. CarterSince 1975, statements have been made by the Minister responsible for health and social services about extra expenditure for projects in Northern Ireland on 21 December 1977, 7 February 1978, 21 March 1978 and 13 February 1979.
These statements dealt, respectively with the physically handicapped, inner-city aid projects, the creation of new jobs 218W in the health and personal social services in 1978–79 and additional resources for those services in 1979–80.
Extra funds of £2 million for the physically handicapped have been allocated to the Health and Social Services Boards for a variety of projects on the basis of £200,000 in 1978–79, £400,000 in 1979–80, £600,000 in 1980–81 and £800,000 in 1981–82. The amount of inner-city aid for health and social services was £570,000 which has been distributed in 1978–79, again for a wide variety of projects, to various voluntary and community organisations. An additional £3.1 million for job creation in the services was made available in 1978–79. The extra funds of £15.4 million for the services in 1979–80 will be used mainly for their development including projects to assist the mentally handicapped and the under fives. In all but the last statement some expenditure falls in the current financial year and it is not possible at this stage to give the total amount expended or outstanding.