Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)

The Kennedy project the Deputy refers to is an OPW proposal. It was announced by the Minister for Finance in the budget and the OPW is part of the Department of Finance. The resources are secured and will not be coming out of the budgets here. As the Deputy can see, we have an substantial number of projects in place that we want to complete. We shall seek to secure new projects, not all of them necessarily requiring current funding from our perspective. Many of them are well able to provide their own funding, as, for example, different projects in the tourism sector. It is correct that some are State operated, but some are managed by local authorities in many different areas around the country. I accept these are challenging times in terms of current funding for anything, regardless of whether it is national or local government.

After years of growth and enormous capital provision around the country, I did not want some of these facilities closing down, so I decided that no matter how difficult it would be, we must try to sustain these centres and keep them open, at a minimum, while maintaining as much employment as possible within them. I am sure the level of activity is not as high as they would like and I accept that if they had more money, they would do more. However, the alternative would not be acceptable.

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