Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Mr. Rafferty made the point that this was a demand-led scheme. Here we have at least €200 million in approvals in the system, and the Mayo figure will bring it to over €200 million. That is €200 million that people are waiting for and we have €50 million or so in the pot, with €24 million spent last year. Could the committee get regular information in order that we might track this? There also needs to be a mechanism so that, if we are nowhere near reaching a spend of €50 million halfway through the year, something can be done about it. We cannot have a situation where people are out €200 million in approvals and we are giving the witnesses’ organisations a hard time at the end of the year if the spend has only been €20 million or €30 million. Ultimately, €50 million is nowhere near enough, given what has been approved to date after a relatively small number of applications. I would like us to return to this point.