Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

In response to the last question, I am confident this is not so. In respect of the number of groups that were cross-county and are now single county, off the top of my head, I cannot give the Deputy an answer. As far as I can remember, part of one of the groups in Mayo extended into west Sligo. That has now become a county group in Sligo. In respect of Leitrim north Roscommon, I understand that they are setting up a body in Leitrim and a body in Roscommon. There was already a Cavan partnership and a Monaghan partnership, while the Leader programme was a joint programme for the two counties. Since we are amalgamating the Leader and partnership programmes, they could not agree as to whether it would be a Leader partnership for the two counties or two Leader partnerships. That was where the difficulty arose there. There were a number of community partnerships in Kilkenny and south Tipperary so it does not just relate to Leader companies. There will be one in Kilkenny and another in south Tipperary.

One must understand that there were partnership groups involved in every part of this process as well. We are maintaining Duhallow, a programme in a part of County Limerick whose name escapes me at the moment and the Gaeltacht and the islands because the Gaeltacht does not lend itself to a county structure and it is important to provide services.

It is obviously up to new bodies in respect of employment but the intention was to employ everybody. Where some body stands outside the process——

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