Fergal Browne (Fine Gael)

I will not rehash the arguments in this debate except to say that I too have grave concerns at the reported changes in the distribution of dormant bank account funds. The money is there because people have passed away. It does not belong to the Fianna Fáil Party to share out among Fianna Fáil projects. It belongs to the taxpayers and everyone in the country to benefit from the projects.

When the Minister of State mentioned ADM, I immediately thought of the taxi hardship panel and its role in that. It effectively overruled an all-party transport committee when it recommended that changes be made. We saw how the Minister for Transport, Deputy Brennan, got his way with ADM in compensating taxi drivers. There are issues still to be resolved.

I do not apologise for being a little parochial. As the Minister of State may be aware, three applications for funding under the dormant accounts fund have been submitted by the Carlow regional youth service. I wrote to the Minister recently to explain that, unfortunately, Carlow town is a RAPID area due to its drug problem which has become so bad that people are injecting drugs into their eyeballs because they cannot locate a vein in other parts of their bodies. We also had recent cases of drug dealers giving themselves up at a local Garda station because they were terrified of their customers who were going berserk searching for their next supply of drugs. This is the reality in Carlow town.

The success achieved in stopping the so-called Westies gang from operating in Dublin has unfortunately resulted in the problem spilling into Carlow and other towns within a similar radius of Dublin, such as Tullamore. We, in Carlow, are bearing the brunt of the problem. It is for this reason that I ask the Minister, when disbursing the dormant accounts fund, to consider carefully the three applications by the Carlow regional youth service. These are for a youth worker for the Greycullen area, which is a RAPID area, a support worker for secondary schools in Carlow — four or five schools in the town have expressed a willingness to get involved in this scheme — and, most important, for the redevelopment of the town's old library for youth facilities, for which approximately €1 million is being sought.

The applicants have been messed around in recent times to the extent that the local authority, which offered to transfer the old library building to the youth service free of charge, is now seriously considering withdrawing the offer because the organisation has not used the buildings. I urge the Minister to look favourably on these excellent projects, which I hope will contribute to alleviating the drug problem in Carlow. The reason the dormant accounts fund was established in the first place was to assist these kinds of initiatives. Senator John Phelan has indicated he would like to make a contribution on this topic. May I share time with him?