Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)

When an appeal is made to an appeals officer about the adequacy of the content of the assessment, will the appeals officer have to take resources and availability into account? This Bill leads me to believe this will be the case.

Bearing in mind the Minister of State's reference to the meeting between himself, his officials, the Taoiseach and the DLCG, how many groups are left in the process? What groups were met? Who speaks on behalf of the disability community? It is important to know the answers to these questions.

I issued a statement welcoming the money made available in the budget. I thought is was a very good idea and was absolutely thrilled. I was not surprised that the funding was announced by Deputy Cowen, as Minister for Finance. Anyone to whom one speaks in the disability community will tell one he was probably the only Minister for Health and Children ever to introduce multi-annual funding. When he left that Department, multi-annual funding ceased.

I was contacted yesterday by the father of a young man with a learning disability. He still does not know whether he has a place in the DIT because the funding has not yet come through this year. As is the case with the miser in the corner, one could be sitting on a bag of gold but it is not much good unless one uses it. What is the position on the funding that was announced? Why is it not flowing? Was €300 million not supposed to be spent this year? In spite of this, people are waiting on places as late as the end of May. We are half way through the political year and the money has still not flowed to the areas where it is necessary.

We will be hearing about this pot of gold forever and a day. We should not have to listen to stories about it; it should be spent in the community to do what it is supposed to do. If the Opposition was in Government and it introduced this Bill, the Minister of State, Deputy Fahey, would be standing on top of the gate outside screaming for our heads.

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