Niall Collins (Limerick, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

He is. He has just had an outburst asking why anybody should question the reason public moneys were allocated to six projects. I stated at the outset that I do not begrudge Westport the funding. I do not begrudge any club funding. I merely asked Deputy Ring whether he would publish the criteria for the allocation of €200,000 each to these six projects.

That is public money and people are entitled to this information because the other organisations that did not receive the grant aid also are entitled to such information. It is wrong to suggest that anybody is against a club in the Minister of State's backyard or anywhere else. They are not but a degree of transparency simply is required in this regard.

Finally, I note that at the end of the Minister of State's statement, it was indicated the €1.2 million was coming out of next year's allocation. In his response, the Minister of State should state whether it is correct that if the Department was pre-spending next year's budget in announcing the €1.2 million for the six clubs through the FAI, it was pre-spending some of next year's money.

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