Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy might be aware that last May, while Leader was under my responsibility, I met all the Leader companies. We met in the National Concert Hall, I listened to all of their concerns and, as a result of that, 31 actions were changed on the advice of the Leader companies. They said that these issues need to be addressed, and we did address them. Since then, the process has sped up in terms of applications and, as I understand it, it is working very well. The Deputy might ask why I did not bring them in sooner, and the reason is that we had to bed down the system and see where the issues were. We listened to them and the necessary changes were made. I understand that the Leader programme is now working very effectively and the projects are being processed. The most important thing is that the money gets out to the projects on the ground. As I said, the implementation of the 31 actions is well under way, with approximately two thirds of the actions implemented and substantial progress made on the remaining actions.