Michael Kitt (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Noel Ahern. In many ways the legislation is testament to the successful career of the Minister, Deputy Ó Cuív, since he was Minister of State with responsibility for Gaeltacht affairs. At that time he introduced many measures that helped people in the Gaeltacht. I often looked across with envy from my base in east Galway at some of the benefits of those schemes.

Senator Ulick Burke referred to the fact that, as Minister of State in the Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development, Deputy Ó Cuív introduced other initiatives outside of Gaeltacht areas, particularly the CLÁR and RAPID programmes which have been a great success. The CLÁR programme highlighted the plight of rural areas where there has been a reduction in population. Measures had to be taken to help such communities.

Some Opposition speakers appeared to knock these initiatives, but the RAPID programme, in particular, has helped in the provision of community employment schemes and the appointment of more than 80 educational welfare officers in some of the major towns throughout the country. As I indicated recently, they will shortly be appointed in Ballinasloe and Tuam.

The programme has also been useful in getting top-ups and grants from the sports capital fund under the national lottery. We should not knock those schemes and give credit where it is due to the initiatives under the CLÁR and RAPID programmes. As the Minister of State said, drugs task forces also come within the remit of the proposed amending legislation on the dormant accounts fund.

I am pleased that we are retaining the disbursements board. At present it has nine members, including the chairman, Conleth Bradley, a barrister, people from the disability area such as Seamus Thompson, CEO of the Irish Wheelchair Association, Gerry Ryan, former general secretary of the National Association for the Mentally Handicapped of Ireland, Professor Áine Hyland from the educational disadvantage committee, and David Brennan from the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs. These people are in a good position to help us target people with disabilities and those who are disadvantaged educationally, socially or personally. While we might score points in other areas we are all agreed on this important issue.

Speakers have referred to new boards being set up and I agree with the points made in that regard. I have argued both here and in the Dáil on the difficulty we have in trying to question Ministers. I had this problem a few weeks ago in regard to the closure of a post office. Senator Ulick Burke and I were not successful in raising that issue. If a Minister were in charge of post offices a new post office owner could have been given at least six months to see if he or she would be able to improve the business in order to save it.

Although some boards have been successful I share the concerns of Senators about how to deal with a fund when it becomes larger than anticipated. Senator Ross referred to the national lottery where it was difficult to foresee the amount of money this fund would generate. Perhaps the dormant accounts fund will also increase in a similar way.

As I understand it we have a disbursement plan and we intend retaining the board. Area Development Management Limited will manage applications for assistance from the fund. All those things are in place and it is now a matter of trying to put the pieces together and ensure this funding is provided for people who are disadvantaged.

Disadvantage is not a new concept. We struggled for years in the west of Ireland trying to get funding from Europe. All political parties tried to resolve that issue when in Government. While we made slow progress we succeeded to some extent. South Galway was left out for many years and a great deal of politics revolved around issues of pre-election announcements.

I reject the charges made against the Minister, Deputy Ó Cuív. In fairness to him, any project he brought forward was done with the aim of helping people in disadvantaged areas. As I said, he was successful in the Gaeltacht areas. Last year he was criticised when the first-time buyer's grant was abolished other than in Gaeltacht areas. There are reasons certain benefits go to a Gaeltacht area that do not apply to the rest of the country.