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

Cork is a big county and it is always recognised as being such, in the State. It has three local action groups, LAGs, in it. The advantage of that is they get €3 million start-off money and then money based on the rest of the criteria. Cork is kind of continuous from east Cork to west Cork. There is no very clear dividing line. The second-biggest county is Galway. It has half the island population and it has got an area they call Connemara that is separated completely from the rest of the county by the city and the lake. You could say it is a country in its own right. However, we are treated as one county for the purposes of LEADER funding and we lose out on the second €3 million. The islands were badly let down when they did not get their own LAG. There was bitter disappointment at that. It means loss of jobs on the islands. Keeping people employed on the islands is vital if we want to have a vibrant population and viability in the islands.

There are two delivery agencies for LEADER, one of which is in Connemara and the other in east Galway. They are treated as one for their financial allocation, however, which means that Galway is €3 million short. The problem is that Leitrim - I have nothing against Leitrim; I love Leitrim, and it is a great county - as well as Longford and all these smaller counties, get the €3 million. Nobody amalgamated Cavan and Monaghan, said they are all the one really and let us give one €3 million. I separated them out.