Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)

I assure Deputy Sherlock that we are considerably in excess of the EU requirement. My understanding is that we will continue to be so, even with the new programme. If the need arises we will discuss that matter with Europe.

During recent years our Exchequer has been fortunate in that we have able to put much more funding from national resources into schemes that are partially funded by the European Union. The ratio in some instances is more than 50% of Irish money against the percentage of EU funding.

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