Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Yes, but the Minister also said it was as per normal procedure. When I was a Minister I tried to avoid any carry over for many reasons. There are two carry forwards involved here. One is €13 million that she will carry forward with the deferred sanction, which has its downsides. It should be spent within the calendar year. The second is that the Minister is having another €20 million carried forward in local authority coffers. Let us say that is €30 million; we will not argue over €1 million here or there. At least €30 million is being carried forward. This is money allocated for spending on work that has not been done within the calendar year. Instead of looking at that in a positive light, as the Minister is doing, I see it in a negative light. I view it as €30 million that should have been spent on action in rural Ireland in 2016 being deferred, by one subterfuge or another, into next year. I repeatedly told the Minister in this committee last June that the Department was going to underspend and I asked her to sanction money then. Now, it is the end of the year and there is an underspend in the Department of €30 million. That is totally unsatisfactory.