Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)

The Minister lost the battle in the Cabinet. No doubt the cutbacks were savage. Community development funding is down €22.4 million, drugs funding is down €4.4 million, Gaeltacht and islands funding is down €23.4 million, and promotion of the Irish language funding is down €2.8 million.

I received many representations from the community development programmes, CDPs, in particular. The Minister is amalgamating some of them and getting rid of others. The timeframe is what is really worrying them. Some of them accept there must be changes and some of them want to work with the Department. First, they get a letter stating this will not be dealt with until March next; they then get a letter stating it must be done by December. I ask the Minister and his junior Minister to postpone any decisions on these CDPs and to sit down, talk to them, see if they can come to an arrangement. These are very important, both for city and rural areas.

Gaeltacht and islands funding is down €23.4 million. That would be a massive cutback in any Department. Can the Minister operate within his Department with such cuts?

See this speech in context