Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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In January, either in response to a parliamentary question or when speaking in the Dáil, I said we had reached about 50% drawdown, which suggested we had been more successful than we anticipated, given €200 million was the tranche for three years. At the beginning of February, in reply to a parliamentary question, I reiterated that point and said it required further funding to continue and that we were in discussions with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, which my officials have been. Only last week, in reply to a parliamentary question on 26 February, I repeated what I said on 5 February, and I indicated that certain local authorities that used their allocations over the course of 2018 had received extra funding and that the discussions around the 2019 allocations were ongoing. That was just last week and here we are in committee today. The timing of the freedom of information release yesterday has nothing to do with my Department because that is not a memo from my Department.