Michael Finucane (Fine Gael)

I have listened to many of the contributions. I return to what Senator Higgins said originally. It is remarkable that Opposition politicians are being accused of using the term "slush fund", since the expression emanated from the Committee of Public Accounts and the great work of the late Jim Mitchell. It was flagged at the time regarding dormant accounts. The Minister for Finance, Deputy McCreevy, perhaps in one of his more enlightened moods, first used the term. He said that the legislation had been enacted in that way to prevent the Government having access to a slush fund that Ministers would use to favour pet projects. In view of this, the Fianna Fáil Members should not criticise the Opposition for saying what the Minister for Finance said originally.

Senator Ross referred to lottery funding and what has happened to it. A weighting factor was supposed to have been introduced, with various points awarded depending on the project. From experience — not sour grapes or anything of that sort — I can say that largesse was poured into my constituency, which was marginal before the last election. In the final two weeks before polling day it was applied generously, whether by the Department of Health and Children or the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism.

The Minister of State asks us to believe his statement that it is unfair and unrealistic to expect that a person who serves on a board for just a few hours a month could be accountable for the spending of hundreds of millions of euro. He should catch himself on. He said that he had announced changes in December. Possibly it was late December, and possibly when we were in recess. Does it matter? He is disappointed that the newspapers did not pick up on it. The Minister of State is very good at spin-doctoring; if he wanted it picked up on, that would happen. The point is this is the document that we received this week from Comhairle, which does very good work. It is dated February 2004. It is a pity that the Minister of State did not even tell Comhairle that he was making changes, because the document states "The Dormant Accounts Fund Disbursements Board is a statutory body which is responsible for disbursing the money from the fund." The word used is "statutory". This comes from an organisation that I would trust much more than the Minister of State, who refers to a part-time chairman disbursing funds.