Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)

I thank the Minister for his reply. Obviously the bailout programme places conditions and restrictions on expenditure across all Departments, including the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine, as the Minister outlined. It covers not only expenditure, but also policy as we have seen with other Departments. If the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine is bound by the Government expenditure rules, could it potentially cause difficulty this year or in the final year of the programme, 2013, when we try to draw down those funds? As the Minister said, some of them are 100% funded from Europe and some of them have a co-funded dimension. Could the funds from Europe exceed the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine limits on expenditure from the point of view of co-funded programmes and thus harm the ability to draw down those funds?

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