Brian O'Shea (Waterford, Labour)

I do not dispute the Minister's claim. If the fund is larger, it requires more administrative staff. However, it was not required to change how decisions are made on the fund. The Government is attempting to take this role on itself. No Member can convince me that this was not done for blatant political purposes.

If the Bill is enacted, from its commencement date to the expected date of the general election in 2007, the Government will have many bites of the cherry to buy votes through the fund. The reason for the establishment of the fund and its objectives are admirable. However, the Government came on this crock of gold and decided to grab it for its political purposes. The Bill is a backward step for our democracy. People, particularly the young, already feel cynical towards politics. When an Administration is in power too long, it becomes arrogant. It cannot see how its actions will be rightly interpreted by the public. The Bill can only be interpreted as a blatant attempt by the Government to ensure every possible vote will be squeezed out of the fund. Instead of an objective and independent method of disbursing the moneys, a partisan system will be put in place. The Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Deputy Ó Cuív, can now inform the Government of his recommended allocations. Every Cabinet Member will have his or her pet projects. What will emerge in the end will display this approach. I am not seeking to be righteous, but if the Bill is passed into law, whatever Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs replaces the current Minister, or whatever administration replaces the current Administration, there will be a temptation to allocate the money along purely partisan lines. I am not saying that people will not act differently in the future. However, we have a huge responsibility in how this House is perceived because of what has emerged from the tribunals. People see this House as some necessary evil at best but, by and large, there is very little admiration for public representatives today. That is not to say that there are not many admirable people in the House, but we must do a bit more than we are currently doing if we are to win back the respect this Parliament deserves. This legislation is going totally and utterly in the wrong direction.

As Deputy McGinley said, we are expected to oppose legislation from this side of the House. However, on this occasion, both Deputy McGinley and I are speaking as responsible Members of the House in the firm belief that if this legislation passes into law, it will do huge damage once again to the perception of the honourable way Members of the House should act. As the 15 members of the Cabinet cannot represent each constituency and county, what will inevitably happen is that there will be a lopsided allocation of moneys because of the way the divvy up will happen at Cabinet. The legislation proposes to put in place a very unfair system. There is currently a senior Minister in my constituency but that had not been the case for a long time. The constituencies who have Ministers will do better and areas that do not have that kind of representation will suffer. If this is how we handle our democracy, can we complain if people perceive us as operating in a self-interested way where we will flog out the money so that we retain our seats? Taking into consideration the population at large, we are not doing what we should be doing.

The board will be increased from nine members to 11. This will include the chairperson and ten members as opposed to the chairperson and eight members. What always amuses me about this type of legislation is that there is no mention of financial implications. If the final processing of the applications takes place within the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, and the present administration is being carried by the Dormant Accounts Fund Disbursements Board, the staff in the Department will be diverted from other activities which will result in an overall cost. There are financial implications. The cost is now being borne by the fund but if the Bill becomes law, it will be borne by the Department. I cannot understand how this will not have financial implications. I would like the Minister of State to address this issue.

We are being presented with an either-or situation by the Minister of State. We cannot have the present structure because the fund is so large we must go down the road of allowing the Cabinet to make, in secret, uninhibited decisions on where they may be spent. On Committee Stage, I will return with suggestions on how the present board could be changed so that it could do the job in a way that would be clearly independent, clearly removed from political influence is as much as the Minister of the day will appoint the members of the board.

It was rather touching when the Minister of State said that the Minister would place an advertisement in the newspapers inviting submissions from people, that they would be alerted to the fact that the board was being be set up and the Minister would have regard to the submissions. The Minister of State and I know that is not the case because people will be selected. Whatever Government is in place will select people who are favourable to its political parties. This may not be a direct influence, but it is an influence. I would be the first to admit that it is very difficult to come up with a method whereby one could put together a board which would be truly impartial. Given my experience, the road to travel is not the road of having nominees from various organisations because one could end up with people who are good at getting themselves elected rather than people who can do the job effectively. It is not an easy task to put together such a board.

At this stage I can think of nothing better than the Minister appointing the boards. I have no doubt that the Minister, Deputy Noel Ahern, would be sincere in appointing a board that would work in the overall interest, therefore, he would appoint people who could do the job. However, there is a perception that the Government will not appoint a board which is made up of a majority of people who would be well known for opposing the Government — this is not the way the world works. In the end, it is preferable that a board which is independent in its functions deals with this large sum of money to achieve the objectives in the strategy with which the Dormant Accounts Fund Disbursements Board has come forward.

I believe we have reached a watershed. For instance, there is the lottery money, and if any of us were asked in court to swear as to how impartial the allocation of that money is, I do not know of anyone who could say it is allocated impartially. Let us be honest, it is an existing slush fund, and my genuine fear is that we now want to create a similar fund whereby the guiding force is constituency interests or a general interest in a national body and so on. In the main, the guiding force in terms of decisions made will be the self-interest of the particular constituency. The explanatory and financial memorandum notes: "the Bill provides for a two-stage process whereby decisions on spending from the fund will be made by Government following a transparent process of inviting applications for programmes and types of projects". In the name of God, inserting the word "transparent" in that context is disingenuous. There is no process by which applications are invited to allow for any significant concealment. To promise transparency with regard to inviting applications is mind-boggling. At the end of the day, the basic concept should always be that the citizens at large are invited to make applications. The word "transparent" is planted there to give an impression that everything will be transparent.

The memorandum continues: "Having regard to the dormant accounts disbursement plan and following consultation with other Ministers, the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs will, in the first instance, submit, at least annually, a proposal to Government regarding the programmes and types of projects for funding following the completion of the assessment of applications." I take that to clearly mean that the assessment of applications in the first instance will be carried out within the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs under the direction of the Minister, who will have consulted with other colleagues who, I would suggest, might not be as concerned about the projects relating to their Departments as much as about their own pet projects on the home front.

The memorandum says that a list of recommended projects will be submitted to the Government for approval. That is to be done by the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs. The memorandum then says that a list of all successful applications as approved by Government will be published along with the amounts involved in each case. This too is drivel. The bottom line is that we will see the list and will know who has been successful, who has got money and who did not get money. We can then make our own deductions as to where money has gone and whose influence was involved. To give the impression that this is a transparent, open process is nonsense. The only way to ensure transparency would be to list the unsuccessful applications along with the successful ones and provide a report as to why certain applications were successful and others were not. That is the sort of information that would be available if we were talking about a true system of transparency and openness but that is not what is happening here.

The way this section is drafted is meant to convey one idea with regard to what will happen, namely the two-stage process. However, while the new board of ten and one will list the types of programmes and projects that should be funded, it is the Government that will decide. The invitations will be sought from the Minister's Department. It amused me to read that the board was being given important functions. The language was crafted to disguise the real issue, which is that the only decision that matters is being taken away from the board. That is the final decision on where the money should go and who should get it.

To tell Deputies these very important functions are being given to the new board is to treat us as fools. The board is losing the only real power it has. I accept the sincerity of the Minister of State in rejecting the arguments made on this side of the House but I ask him to look at the matter between now and Committee Stage. I am pleased the Minister of State is open to new suggestions and I know he will honour his promise. I know any amendments tabled on this side of the House that are seen to be superior to any current provisions of the Bill will be accepted. That is welcome. My problem is that the Minister of State believes that going ahead with this Bill is the right way to proceed. Not many people believe that. No doubt those on the Government side do but I suggest that this belief is very much in the context of winning the next general election and using €200 million of the taxpayers' money.

I know that for particular reasons the fund is to be disbursed at a rate of €30 million per annum and I do not suggest the entire €200 million will be allocated in one go. The reasons for keeping the money in any particular year to a level of €30 million is a budgetary concept in terms of the Exchequer and the finances of the State at large. However, if this Bill becomes law, the Government could well be tempted to decide that the figure of €30 million is a little bare, and since the election might be just a year away it could decide to increase the figure to €50 million.

See this speech in context