Noel Ahern (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)

Kerry. I looked at the list with a particular Deputy and there was none from his constituency. I checked up on it and found there had been no applications from that midlands county. If a politician had his or her hands over all of this, we would be much more likely to look at how our colleagues might be influenced by it. If one looks at the funding measure for older people, one can see that it was not a political input.

Some counties, for whatever reason, have a better structure of community and voluntary organisations. The word must get out or else they have better partnerships who guide them on how to complete an application. I do not have exact data, but I saw it at the weekend.

These programmes are being announced all the time. Of this year's ones, there is still the one on IT to which I referred in the reply and the one for equipment for youth groups and scouts. Even within our own segment, the one on alcohol and all those advertised during the year will be announced early in the new year.

Then we had our overall flagship project. The Department of Health and Children is looking after the disabilities programme, the closing date for which was this month. The Department of Education and Science has not got very far yet with its project. Decisions are being rolled out all the time.

See this speech in context