Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

Is the Minister not alarmed that the recent evaluation of the Community's last support framework for 2000-06, showed under the heading "entrepreneurship" that the original application of funds was only 10% of all the employability funds that were devoted to entrepreneurship? Only 36% of the target money has been spent to date and the Minister's Department has been unable to give any indicator as to whether achievement has been registered in this section under entrepreneurship. If we are to have faith that the Minister will put a credible package together for the period 2007-13, I want to know why and what has gone wrong with the last programme. Why is the Minister unable to publish proper indicators of performance against targets in that crucial area?

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