Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)

I propose to take Questions Nos. 126 and 128 together.

As required by the Government in dealing with the current financial difficulties, an amount of €5.978 million was identified as the savings to be achieved this year on the Votes of the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism and the National Gallery. The savings will be as follows: €3 million in Department operated capital programmes for cultural projects; €2 million in savings among our agencies in grant programmes; and an additional €978,000 in savings in administration costs and other efficiencies across the Department, the National Gallery and our agencies.

In advising our agencies of the budgetary adjustments, the Department requested them to apply the savings in such a way as to have minimal impact on the levels of service to the public. As the Deputies are aware, the Government is currently preparing for budget 2009 and until such time as the budget has been announced, I am not prepared to speculate on its impact of the Department's Vote.

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