Mr. Michael Ludlow:

No, absolutely not. I have mentioned various activities the company is involved in, including our success in drawing down significant funds for the benefit of the county from the European Commission. In our conversation with benefactors to the company and the corporate sector, they have an understanding as to what they support. If we make an application for very substantial European programmes, such as the one I mentioned, the minimum cost of making the application will be approximately €5,000 to €7,000. Therefore, we seek corporate support to fund these applications because we are not for profit charitable organisations and funding must arise somewhere.

In general, the Chairman would find rural industries, in particular in the agricultural sector, are tremendously supportive of anything that would be for the good of the county or the rural economy. This is essentially how we have utilised funding of this nature. Equally, the committee should remember when Leader was first introduced in 1995, despite the fact a company might have been awarded a Leader programme grant unless it could prove it could raise a given sum of money to assist the operation of the company in investing it could not access the Leader moneys.

So in County Meath, that sum in 1995 was £100,000. There is an historic aspect to the ongoing support that is there from the rural and agri-economy in County Meath towards assisting the delivery of Leader programmes or other programmes of support to the community.