Mr. Michael O'Keeffe:

The figure on its own is striking. The most important thing to say about it is that of that €22 million, €16 million is allocated to various projects. The nature of the projects is that the money is drawn down over the course of a 12-month period in general terms. The most recent allocation was in February of this year and none of that money would have been drawn down. We have been aware that a surplus existed. We made a conscientious effort last year to reduce the surplus but we will always have a very large amount of money in situ at any given time because of the nature of the way projects are drawn down. In terms of our investment policy, we invest all of the BFS money. The finance audit and risk committee, to which we referred earlier, review the investment policy. We have taken independent advice on the management of those funds and the additional money we get from that investment also comes back into the scheme. There will always be a large amount in place because of the nature of the way funding is allocated on a round by round basis. We have another allocation decision of the authority on Monday week. We would hope to allocate up to possibly more than €4 million on foot of that which will help us to reduce the surplus but we must keep a certain amount in reserve as well if they are special schemes or whatever that need to be covered. The money moves all the time to the different projects and they get made but because of the nature of the scheme we will always have a surplus.