Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

I thought it was self-evident that we have gone far beyond the national development plan in the way in which we have operated the RAPID programme. Neither the leverage fund nor the dormant accounts issue arose under the NDP. RAPID is also about co-ordinating the various agencies to get a better and more co-ordinated delivery.

Within a national development plan, front loading means that in the 2000 to 2006 period, for example, one receives the money between 2002 and 2004 rather than between 2004 and 2006. That would not be a major gain. I am concerned about additionality, that at the end of the next national development plan, we will be able to state clearly how much extra money was invested in the RAPID areas over and above what those areas would have received had there been no such scheme, because every area receives money from the national development plan.

There are two issues: front loading, which means early payment, and what one might call uploading or giving more money to areas with greater problems. The first issue is only a temporary palliative but I am focusing on the second issue. We need better ways of measuring that system because some Departments have done better than others in delivering. As chairman of the national monitoring committee, I have made it clear that we need to see results from mechanisms that demonstrate there is an extra benefit in being in RAPID and in the roll-out of various programmes under the national development plan.

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