Brian Hayes (Fine Gael)

——which are no different to those of the senior party. I remind Senator Dooley that his former colleague and Taoiseach, Albert Reynolds, was once advised "when pressed on this keep repeating the above" and the Senator did a very good job of that in the last eight minutes. He told us that the principles are still in place. I am delighted to hear that but we are not interested in the principles, we want to know whether the money is still in place. That is the issue that has been hived off to the Executive that calls itself the Government. He also said that the new dormant funds board will remain. There will be a new board as a result of the Government's U-turn and it will be as effective as the old tea council in terms of making executive decisions about distributing the money. This is a very bad day's work.

Last week I heard our spokesperson, Deputy O'Dowd, filleting the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Deputy Ó Cuív, on "Morning Ireland" because he had nowhere else to go. The Minister was brought up in Dublin 4 although one would not know that from listening to him now. He gave us CLÁR and was allegedly behind the RAPID programme for procurement of funds for disadvantaged urban communities. Very few funding initiatives have come forward for RAPID despite the fanfare with which the Taoiseach launched it before the last general election. We must get serious on this complete reversal of policy. It is a U-turn representing what Fianna Fáil does best, taking unto itself public moneys, which exist to be spent on public projects, for its own procurement and pet projects within the economy. The Opposition intends to highlight that and to scrutinise the Government because we have heard no arguments in its favour from Senator Dooley or any of his colleagues.