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

I cannot understand the mentality of putting extra money into Brussels to get a percentage of it back when it would be much simpler for the Government to put it straight into the Leader programme and not lose a lot of money in transmission while having a whole lot of rules added to it in its transmission back here. I seek a commitment that Leader will revert to the €400 million plus level between 2007 and 2013. The current Leader programme is significantly underfunded, not because of the European cut, albeit there was one, but because of the cut in the Exchequer contribution. Every year, inflation eats into this. Over a 21 year period from 2007, there will be a 40% decrease in the value of money at 2% per annum.

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