Mr. Kevin McCarthy:

The local authorities would have a direct relationship with various Departments on different aspects of their function. In relation to this particular function, their direct relationship is with us. From that point of view, there is not an issue.

In terms of our mandate more generally and our mandate to work through Government, we have an important co-ordinating role in rural development. The nature of rural development is contingent on a lot of actors and interactions across business and enterprise, tourism and transport, heritage, Gaeltacht, etc. Our role is to bring a coherence to all that engagement and we do that as best we can. It necessarily involves interacting across all those and the mechanisms and structures are there for us to do that effectively.

In relation to the accidental impact, I would say it is not accidental. Through all of our programmes of investment, we seek to deliver on Government objectives across a range of fronts. Climate action is one of those. It is clearly a hugely important front. I referred earlier, in the question from Deputy Butler, to the objectives of the rural regeneration and development fund which is to deliver on the ten defined national strategic outcomes. In that sense there is a direct link in the criteria of that fund to the climate action agenda. Similarly, for example, in LEADER, we would require proposers in putting forward applications to identify any climate impact of what they are doing. We continuously keep the criteria and the eligibility requirements of all our schemes under review as we go from call to call and that is something on which we can keep a direct watch. There is more than an accidental outcome here.