Tug of war over IFI?
Set up in 1986, the International Fund for Ireland has attracted more than £600 million and bankrolled more than 5000 projects in Northern Ireland and the border counties. Those projects included the Ballyconnell canal linking the Shannon and Erne waterways, the St Patrick's Centre in Downpatrick, and the Townsend enterprise park on the peaceline in West Belfast.
After a quarter of a century it seemed the IFI might be drawing to a natural close with a planned run down of its European funding. But in the USA, some Irish Americans felt there was still a need for the fund, putting their names to a The letter called for more cash so the Fund could "provide the assistance needed to guarantee a civil society and a developing democracy, and to prevent a return to violence in Northern Ireland".
However there isn't a consensus across the Atlantic on this point, as Trina Vargo of the US Ireland Alliance, which is responsible for funding George Mitchell's scholars to visit Ireland, has made a competing bid for $5 million of annual Congressional funding for the next four years, She says that given the IFI has been receiving between 15 and 20 million dollars annually, her bid would leave the US Treasury between $40 and $60 million better off.
Ms Vargo says that since the 1990s the Fund has been frequently promising to wind itself up after just one more year, but became "one of those taps that was never turned off." She adds that "it is just silly that a handful of people are trying to suggest that the US-Ireland Alliance wants to take money away from the IFI. The IFI has said it doesn t need it, so there is no reason for Congress to provide it."
So Congress has a decision to make about where to put its cash. Given the tapering off of European peace funding and doubts over other philanthropic sources of cash some of the local voluntary groups dependent on these funds may be feeling nervous about their future.
I'm 
Comments