Dan Boyle (Cork South Central, Green Party)

The Minister has reiterated a section of the Comptroller and Auditor General's report and has posited the defence that this is a procedural matter. The matter is one of the smallest references in the report but the three paragraphs dealing with it raise other questions. Does the use of this mechanism indicate that the rural and social scheme was thought up quite quickly in advance of the budget? After the Budget Statement in December 2004 a mechanism had to be found to pay for the scheme. This much is glaringly obvious from the brief references in the report.

The sum of €10 million paid from the dormant accounts fund under the old mechanism before the Dormant Accounts (Amendment) Act was introduced in 2005 indicates an inappropriate use of that money. Such money should be used for voluntary organisations in the whole yet the Minister chose to fund a scheme announced in the budget that should have been funded from general Exchequer funding. Has the original €10 million taken from the fund been reimbursed? Will the continuing funding mechanism for the rural social scheme come from the Department's Estimate? Will he continue using the dormant accounts fund to fund the rural social scheme?

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