Noel Ahern (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)

The Deputy will be aware that I have outlined in the House on a number of occasions the reasons the Government decided to make changes to the dormant accounts scheme. In summary, these were to fully address governance and accountability issues and to provide for greater transparency in decision-making on disbursements.

On 4 January 2006, I announced details concerning the allocation of €24 million from the dormant accounts fund this year for the purpose of supporting programmes and types of projects tackling social and economic disadvantage. Following this announcement, there was a certain amount of media coverage, including an interview on national radio with a representative from Integrated Rural Development, Kiltimagh, concerning the changes introduced by Government on dormant accounts.

There may have been an impression given in the interview that Pobal was previously the decision-making authority with regard to disbursements from the dormant accounts fund. This is clearly not the case. The Dormant Accounts Fund Disbursements Board engaged Pobal as a service provider to administer the initial round of funding on its behalf. In this regard, Pobal received and evaluated applications and submitted its advice to the board which then made decisions on whether applications should be approved or not.

Under the new arrangements recently put in place by the Government, applications will be received and assessed against published criteria by or on behalf of public bodies and the results of such assessments submitted to the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs. The Minister will then submit the results of the assessments to the Government for approval. It is anticipated that Pobal will, in the main, be engaged as a service provider to again carry out the function of receiving and assessing applications similar to its role for the former board.

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