Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

Each local authority is then informed of its allocation and it is the local authority, not me, which selects the roads within the confines of the terms of the schemes. My Department then receives the proposals from the local authorities matching the amount of money allocated. These are then sent to the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government for examination to ensure that they comply with the terms of the scheme. Having gone through this arm's length and rigorous procedure and on the recommendation of the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and subject to a check that it is in a CLÁR district electoral division, a decision is made by my Department to approve the grants. This decision is then made public by my Department. It is obvious from the procedure that there is no mechanism by which I could personally choose roads for repair within my own county or in any other county.

I call on Senator Ulick Burke to withdraw the utterly false allegations he made against me and to apologise in the House. Politics has been demeaned, as have other professions, by wrongdoing. However, all of us are equally demeaned by untrue allegations being made for political gain, which any cursory examination would have proved to be unfounded. Senator Ulick Burke is aware of the damage that can be done by baseless allegations in the climate in which we live. This kind of allegation is the lowest kind of political skulduggery — at a level to which I would never stoop. It leaves the victim in a "damned if you do and damned if you don't" position. One is damned if one defends oneself because no matter how clear-cut is the rebuttal, one is in danger of highlighting the wrongful allegation to a wider audience, thereby creating a false impression that there must be some truth to it. On the other hand, one is damned if ones does not defend oneself because one creates the belief that there must be some foundation to the allegation.

My first reaction when Senator Ulick Burke made his allegations some considerable time ago before the last election was to ignore them for the reasons I outlined. However, it would appear that Senator Burke feels that this gives him leave to repeat these allegations. He seems to be of the mind that it is not the truth that counts, but with what one can get away.