Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the vague assurances from the Minister of State but the clock is ticking. As she knows with employment law, etc., unless there is certainty of funding and the amount of it, protective notice will have to be given to the staff, many of them long serving, of the development companies in question. The Minister of State has not given any indication of the amount of money being made available, whether all the companies that received funding in the past will continue to be funded and what term of funding will be involved. There have been months of opportunity to deal with this. I raised this with the Minister of State’s predecessor, the former Minister, Phil Hogan, over a long time. I was assured then that the islands, particularly the non-Gaeltacht islands, would not be left in this situation.

Can the Minister of State tell me when an announcement will be made? Will she indicate the amounts of money that will be involved? Will she indicate the term of the funding involved? Will it be a three-year, five-year or an eight-year programme?

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