Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

Regarding the State's most basic responsibility of providing people with health care the Government has said refused an increased allocation of funds for the HSE, yet a greener homes scheme and other worthy schemes have gone way over budget and we are willing to take money from an information and communications technology budget, effectively from another Department, to bail out this scheme. I have no problem with extra money being sourced from the Department of Finance or with money being found within the energy budget because this would mean the Minister is prioritising within the heading of energy conservation and putting money into the areas in which he feels it will be best spent and will give value. I will talk about the €6.2 million in this regard in a moment. Without a clearer explanation than that offered I do not find it acceptable to take money allocated for the roll-out of broadband, which has had a poor record under this Government for the past five or six years, and put it into a totally unconnected area.

We need clarification on where the money is to come from. We have received a reasonable explanation from the Minister on the €6.2 million, which is to come from energy research and technological development and innovation, RTDI, programmes, and I thank him for that. It seems extraordinary that the original estimate for energy RTDI, after the budget, was approximately €7 million, similar to the figure for 2006. The pre-budget figure was €14 million so, clearly, money has been transferred from energy RTDI research and development programmes to Sustainable Energy Ireland. I do not have a problem with that because it means money is going to areas that are expanding and working well, like the greener homes scheme, because people are buying into them. The greener homes scheme is a success story and the energy budget should be adjusted to reflect this.

The other €10 million is the area that causes me concern. Last week during Question Time the Minister said that this is coming from a multi-annual programme in the telecommunications area, particularly from the MANS and other developments. He said that the funds were not fixed on any one year which allows us flexibility in terms of payment to allow the transfer of funds. The Minister is, more or less, saying the same today. Are we expected to believe that one can take €10 million that was presumably allocated for phase two of the roll-out of the metropolitan area networks, MANs, programme and expect no consequences in terms of capital spending? That programme was to put cable around 90 new towns that do not have sufficient broadband connectivity. Without detailed answers as to whether there will be negative consequences for the MANs programme or the roll-out of broadband generally, we cannot support taking €10 million from that fund and putting it into the energy budget.

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