Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

I cannot understand how anybody could talk about slush funds and building roads to supporters' houses when the process is carried out in such an open, clear and transparent manner.

There is one curiosity about all this. A number of years ago I attended a committee meeting of the other House at which Senator Burke's colleague, Deputy McGinley, was present. Not only did he praise me for bringing back scéim na mbóithre áise, he complimented me, on the record, on the fair way in which I had spent the money. Since I became a Minister I have been careful to allocate money in a fair manner. The whole of the CLÁR programme is predicated on ensuring I can stand over every step of the process. I will not accept the baseless allegations made in the House today and on a previous occasion. Each one of these schemes is operated through a process, not according to my personal choice. I create the schemes, of course, but I do not make personal choices onprojects. That allegation is totallyunfounded.

The allocation of funding for roads under the local improvements scheme is quite simple. Each county is given an allocation by the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. When the council has allocated this money it works out how much has been earmarked for CLÁR areas. It notifies my Department of this and we divide the amount by two and make a further allocation for LIS roads in the CLÁR area. The county council picks the roads according to its own priority list. I do not think anything could be fairer. It does no service to politics to imply that people are personally interfering with a mechanism for distributing funds. Every step of the system is designed so that the money is allocated according to series of schemes and not depending on any caprice of mine.