Seán Kyne (Galway West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for her question. The 2018 Dormant Accounts Action Plan, which was published in July, approved funding of up to €39.7 million for 45 different measures across ten Departments. In line with the provisions of the Dormant Accounts Acts, the measures identified in the action plan target social, economic and educational disadvantage and people with a disability.

The approved measures will support a wide range of projects and programmes relating to issues such as social inclusion, assisting migrants, support for carers, speech and language therapy, support for dementia sufferers, and sports measures. The majority of measures will commence in 2019, subject to Voted expenditure being available in each relevant Department.

With regard to funding for projects based in Galway city and county, most of the measures in the action plan are national scale programmes, for example, sports measures for disadvantaged communities, a baby box measure through the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, and education and employment initiatives for disadvantaged communities. The funding for specific geographic areas will only become clear as the measures are implemented on the ground. However, while the delivery of measures is a matter for each relevant Department, I would expect such measures to impact throughout the country.

In my Department, the measure to support ICT utilisation among older people will involve the delivery of a pilot programme in Galway, Mayo and Roscommon. The measure to support enterprise and digital hubs along the Atlantic economic corridor will also benefit Galway city and county directly.

The dormant accounts have been the subject of discussion at the Committee of Public Accounts and the Department has tried to take hold of them in recent months. Departmental officials have done an amount of work. This is the third change of Department with responsibility for dormant accounts. It has taken quite a while to get to the bottom of previous commitments, moneys not spent, decommittals and the rest. We published a comprehensive action plan in July. It is a rather complex programme and the projects can only be delivered from the action plan through a vote on the Estimates for each Department. Any project listed in the action plan must be funded thorough the Estimates of that Department.

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