Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

I concur with the Deputy. I will not go back over what happened. As the Deputy knows, the cohesion process, which is a rationalisation process that in time will pay dividends, was difficult. There were delays and an issue was raised in Brussels, on which the European Union, thankfully, upheld the Department's position. I then found that some of the companies, despite all the time they had been given, had not set up their boards according to the direction of the Department, had not appointed chairpersons and so on. I had to take firm action at the beginning of the summer to try to get this process to move along. That seems to have happened. If I may say so, it is a case of "money talks". I am now hopeful that by the end of this month I will be able to announce the successful bidders. After that, of course, they must be awarded contracts. I hope they will be in a position to accept applications for the programme very shortly.

The good thing is that all of the €425 million is still there. The fact that the roll-out of the programme has been slightly slower than I anticipated in no way affects the amount of money involved. It just means more money will be spent over a slightly contracted period.

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