Pat Carey (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)

In response to Deputy Wall, I would like to think that my Department has a good relationship with his client groups, be it the approximately 480 groups in the drugs sector, the community projects, the Leader companies and so on. The officials have a record of being quite responsive to the needs of communities, including, as I always stress, the need to address emerging needs. It is the known unknowns or the unknown knowns, whichever term one might use.

In response to Deputy Ó Snodaigh, I accept there have been significant reductions in spending in this particular sector in recent years. However, I set out, with some success, in this year's budget to keep to an absolute minimum any reductions in this regard. As I have stated in replies to other questions, any savings that can be made in administration, overheads and so on must be made to protect front line services. A significant amount of resources still are devoted to the community sector and one should not underestimate the impact that such funding has on the ability of those groups to carry out their programmes.

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