Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

The fact that three-phase electricity is so user-friendly can be seen from the case in question. If one needs three-phase electricity, one goes to the ESB to get a quotation and one gets a grant-giving agency to validate it. We hope to involve the county enterprise boards if one cannot get a grant — not all industries can get a grant. When it is certified that one's business is a bona fide business, one sends a simple form, the validation of the business and the ESB quotation to the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs. The beauty of the scheme is that the Department pays the ESB directly because it is public infrastructure that is available to anyone else on the same line. The Department provides 100% payment of the quotation that the ESB gives us as the customer's charge. I do not know about the case to which Senator Scanlon referred, but I am sure the Department would have been asked to pay 100% of the connection charge directly to the ESB.

Perhaps some people do not like the CLÁR programme because, by doing what people on the ground want, it creates popularity for the Government. That may well be a good reason not to like it, but it seems to me that it has become a political sin to do what ordinary people want. They may want bathrooms or wash-hand basins in their houses, if they do not have them. If people tell one they need roads to their houses, it seems there is something wrong if one has the political nous to provide them with that and make oneself popular into the bargain. I do not know when the new political theory came in that it is wrong to provide people with what they perceive they need, be it water or roads or other improvements to their way of life. If that is wrong I stand accused, but I do not stand accused on the basis of what Senator Burke said.

Senator Burke said that I tarred roads that led to the houses of my supporters. He said today that Galway received a disproportionate amount of the money allocated for roads.