James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)

It absolutely will not be kicked down the road on my watch. I assure the Deputy of that. I intend to tackle this. That is why I am engaging with the Minister for public expenditure and directly with SOLAS. I am meeting the board on Thursday. This needs to be tackled and brought to a head. Like all other agencies funded under the Department's aegis, SOLAS makes submissions as part of the annual Estimates process. It is required to ensure that it gets value for money but also that it is productive, uses the resources allocated to it in the correct way and measures and manages properly so that what it estimates is needed in its allocation is actually what it spends. If that is not done, it will cause difficulties, as we see in this case. I agree with the Deputy about kicking the can down the road. It is not the way to do it and it will not be done. We will get this tackled.

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