Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I really appreciate that and I welcome the Minister's comments, particularly around the planning guidelines and a strategic focus. In terms of the building blocks capital programme, while it was great to see, it was a very small amount. I know the Minister is doing her best and the previous Minister was doing his best but €25 million was not enough. There were only six weeks to apply for the scheme over the Christmas break which was not sufficient. In terms of eligibility requirements, they needed to be much wider. It needed to be both private and public for each of the eligibility requirements. I have spoken about this previously on the floor of the Dáil Chamber and would really encourage the Minister to look at this, to plead with the Minister for finance and to launch the scheme again with more funding, wider eligibility requirements and really good publicity about it. I know of providers who would have availed of this if they had qualified for it but they did not. Also, the timeline of six weeks over Christmas was not appropriate.