Brendan Ryan (Labour)

This is a process of talking about transparency. If one distils down what is contained in the Second Stage speech of the Minister of State and some of the more sanctimonious output from the Minister, one would believe there is a wonderful process of transparency. As far as I can figure out, and I have listened to the Minister, what they believe transparency means is that the board produces a plan of which the Government may or may not approve or amend. Therefore, the board is no more than an advisory board. Although there are already sufficient applications for €300 million worth of disbursements, the board will advertise again. It will then go through a process of political decision making with some technical advice and at the end it will tell us who got the money. They think that is transparency.

Let me explain what transparency means. It means one knows what categories of good causes can be assisted by this fund. It also means that one establishes an objective set of criteria which are open to independent scrutiny. It means people can see. Transparent has another meaning, that one can see through. Those of us on this side can see through what it is doing.