Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This is the appeals document. Appeals were meant to be received in May 2014, but obviously the local elections took place and the grants were not announced until after the elections for obvious reasons. The Taoiseach did not want this out before the local selections because there would have been hell to pay if these 26 organisations knew then. At the end of the appeals document it is stated that all Pobal will do is recommend whether an appeal is valid, after which it will go to the Minister and the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government to make a final and binding decision.

A total of 26 organisations are affected and they are all in one sector, namely, disability and health. The Irish Deaf Society has been affected. It must close its Deaf Forward advocacy services because of this. All the Huntington's Disease Association of Ireland would need to keep going is €25,000.

That is what we are talking about here. Someone somewhere took a decision to take out these organisations in recalibrating the criteria. They told nobody in the Department of Health. The former Minister, Deputy Hogan, did not tell the former Minister for Health or the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, who has responsibility for disability, which is a basic thing to do in terms of crosscutting issues and co-ordination of disability. She said last night that she was not told. It is a mess. It is more than a mess; it is very wrong to do it to organisations.

This is a very low level of funding in any event. It is money whose multiplier effect is important. In some instances, it enables them to put stamps on the envelopes and keep an office going. It affects organisations such as Chronic Pain Ireland, the Huntington's Disease Association of Ireland, the Migraine Association of Ireland and Muscular Dystrophy Ireland. This needs ministerial intervention. The Taoiseach should get the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Alan Kelly, the Minister for Health, Deputy Leo Varadkar, and the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, around the table in order to take these organisations out of their agony and give them the prospect of closure. It needs to be sorted out before the end of the month to ensure €1 million is available either through the appeals or through the Department of Health.

Something happened in the dynamic between Pobal and the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government that resulted in the decision to take these organisations out and to leave somebody else look after them. Somebody dropped the ball and nobody is looking after them now. It is unfair and wrong, and the Taoiseach should intervene to sort it out.

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