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

The Minister's predecessor had a funny way of doing his business. Against the wishes of most of the people in Galway, certain people in Galway Country Council were persuaded to opt for one sub-regional area. I understand that the council and the Department were the authors of that. There was war and absolute uproar in the county when it happened because everyone was happy with the previous arrangement. What happened was that they jibbed at it and east and west came to an arrangement. Think geographically for a moment. The headquarters of FORUM are located in Clifden and those of Galway Rural Development are in Ballinasloe. You have to try to get around Galway some way. You could not run the whole of Connemara from Ballinasloe. It is not possible. That would be like running Cavan from Monaghan. It would be ten times worse. It would be like running Cavan, Monaghan and Louth together. All we are looking for is that each of those would be recognised as an entity, that they would operate independently and that would each get €3 million. That is it. It is very simple, and it would be easy to put matters to rights. I will not say the Minister knows this because she was not in post when the previous row happened, but there were court cases and everything when they started on this process of trying to slap it all together. It went up to the Court of Appeal. It took the stroke of a pen to give the €3 million and say there are two entities here and always will be, and it was a mistake by the Department. There is nothing wrong in the Department making a mistake, so long as it recognises it and does not perpetuate it.