Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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One of the issues in the early Leader programmes was that we got plenty of very small things but not the kind of things that would make people say 20 years on that they are fantastic. Most of those developments need much more than €1 million. They need €0.5 million of Leader funding because there are very few other sources of funding other than local authorities and local collecting. That was why the €500 million for the non-commercial was set the last time. Anybody who was dealing with the Leader programme would say that got flagship things done in counties that needed them, big and small.

I asked the Minister a core question. There are all these nice programmes to be done with €19 million because there was an underspend in Leader. Presumably she does not expect there to be an underspend in Leader next year because it will be up and running then. The money will be rolled out very fast because we are into the third year of a seven year plan and we need to get it going. Allowing that it spends €14 million next year between administration and other matters, where will the Minister get the €19 million just to stay steady with all the other programmes she funded this year out of the underspend?