Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

An open call was made through newspaper advertisements last December, which closed early in the year. At that time, some €300 million worth of applications were received because the call was so open. The board asked ADM, which is an agency which operates under the aegis of my Department, to evaluate all the proposals received. The dormant accounts board asked for a further €30 million, making €60 million in total, to deal with these applications. However, ADM has to date only been able to process enough applications to approve less than a spend of €10 million. I am not sure how long it will take ADM to process the rest of the €300 million worth of applications, which were made in good faith under the arrangements in place at the time between December and March.

Therefore, I want to afford ADM whatever time it needs, within reason, to process those applications and allow the dormant accounts board to disburse all the money it has asked for to deal with those applications in hand, which amounts to €60 million. This is the board's estimate of how much it will need to deal with that round of applications. When that round of applications has been processed, the next round will be processed under the new system.

We will, no doubt, debate the comparative merits of the new system and the old system under other amendments tabled by the Opposition. However, it would not be fair to cut off the current process in mid-stream. Therefore, I cannot give an establishment date that would effectively take away from the board which initiated this round the right to conclude its work on this series of applications. The process proposed is reasonable, fair and equitable with the money, which is as people generally expect us to be.