Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Minister for his reply. My party welcomes the partial reversal of the decision that was made in the budget to eliminate 428 DEIS posts. Some 193 will still be lost.

I am very disappointed that he stands over the decision to refuse to accede to our request under freedom of information. This was part of the budgetary process and documentation between the various Departments and within Departments has been released post budget, and Deputy Quinn's Department has released some information to my party about other matters.

The Minister stated here in this House and elsewhere that he made a mistake in regard to the DEIS decision and he stated clearly that he got it wrong. He made the strong point that when the full impact of the Government's decision was brought to his attention, he realised he had not acted on the full information and that the-----

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