Emmet Stagg (Kildare North, Labour)

The Minister of State can send it to us tomorrow. What we are discussing is the Taskforce on Active Citizenship. It was the brainchild of the former Taoiseach, Deputy Bertie Ahern, who decided a taskforce should be established in Ireland on having read a book on the subject by some American guru. There was a report in 2007.

I thank the Minister of State for his verbose answers. He has used more than the time allowed for nearly all the questions, without giving us any information at all. He spoke about other Departments and not about the subject.

In 2008, €200,000 was provided for the taskforce but it did not spend any money at all. I therefore presume it did nothing. This year, the Government, recognising the fact that it was doing nothing, reduced the allocation to €56,000, which is not a huge sum. I do not know whether the taskforce has done anything at all yet this year. An bord snip cast its eye on it and decided it should be abolished. I am partly of the view that an bord snip might be right. The Minister of State obviously believes it is right because he is now trying to hive off all the responsibility for the taskforce to every Department in the State except his own. The section in his own Department will no longer exist.

We have had a talking shop taskforce with no money. Perhaps that is why the Minister of State got into the habit of doing so much talking. Maybe he had been listening to the taskforce, which did nothing at all except talking. All the good phenomena to which the Minister referred, including volunteerism, existed before the taskforce was conceived. It has grown in the face of the recession. The volunteers I know who are working in the community, including on community development projects, do not even know the taskforce exists.

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