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

This is a key thread we need to deal with. My experience of the 1970s and the 1980s in the Gaeltacht was that the Secretaries General of the Department had enormous power for good and were very brave in the decisions they took. When they needed to assist people who were struggling, they assisted them with a minimum of bureaucracy. Would I be right in thinking that no matter what Mr. McGuinness's chief executive put forward, he would hit a block wall? The system was so rigid and careful to count the pennies, it was stopping anything happening?