Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

I operate these things already. We have, for example, a good, open template in CLÁR and RAPID. I invite Senators to look at the printout of how all the schemes operate under CLÁR. It is on my Department's website. They will find that I do not personally make any decisions, except as to the group allocation of money under each heading. In other words, I decide whether to allocate €1 million, €2 million, €3 million and so forth but do not make any decisions on any of the schemes. Everything is done using a scheme and a method as Senators will note if they care to examine the CLÁR printout. We are developing a similar system in RAPID.

I assure the Senator that decisions tend to be taken at meetings between officials in my Department, sometimes accompanied by me, and officials of other relevant Departments, sometimes accompanied by the relevant Minister, all of which are minuted. The work is done in an open and transparent manner.

The intention of the legislation is not to make decisions on projects. We will make political decisions, subject to review every year by the board as to good practice. If €12 million is available for social and economic disadvantage, of which a specific amount will be allocated to RAPID areas, we will consult the AIT schemes and, having done so and secured their agreement for our broad approach, make a political decision on whether to allocate €2 million, €3 million or another sum for a certain measure, as opposed to specific projects. We will then inform those concerned how much has been allocated before disbursing that sum.

I will give an illustration of the type of approach I am trying to develop. Under the RAPID scheme we divided the money between strands one and two. Each strand one area was allocated the same amount, while lesser amounts were allocated to each strand two area because deprivation levels in the latter areas were lower. It was inferred, however, that this was not a thorough approach. As I did not have a better approach, we called in the Central Statistics Office and an expert on deprivation levels who carried out an analysis. We are trying to develop a model to allocate money to each area based on a multiplier, namely, the population of the area in question multiplied by the deprivation index for the area. The areas with the largest population and highest deprivation index will, therefore, receive most money.

This system will be mathematical and fair. An area such as Tuam, for example, which has middle and upper class areas as well as more deprived areas will, as a result, have a lower town deprivation index. The population will then be multiplied by this index to give a result. This approach is open and transparent and reflects the models already developed under RAPID and CLÁR. The type of model we want to model for the dormant accounts is an exact replica of the highly transparent approach in these other programmes.

All the systems we operate under these schemes are available on the website. We are developing the system for RAPID but all parties, specifically the 45 AIT schemes, each of which has 20 or 30 members representing a broad spectrum of society, know exactly how we have operated the RAPID scheme. I regularly meet the representatives of the AIT schemes and I assure Senator Ryan that they are satisfied our approach is fair. While they would like more money, as we all would, they agree they have been part of a process.

Representative of the AIT schemes have also been enthused that the same system applied under RAPID will apply to dormant accounts, that they, as the representative groups in the RAPID areas, will have a say and that the process will in some way match their plans for projects which are unlikely to materialise in the foreseeable future without Exchequer funding. This is the type of methodology we hope to introduce. In time, I hope the Senator, who is a fair-minded man, will accept that this and nothing more is what was intended.

I agree there is a political element. As a politician, I honestly believe that there is a political gain to be made from doing my job well and I would never go behind a door to say so. Surely the whole idea of elections is that those who run the country well are rewarded while those who run it badly, unfairly or in a discriminatory manner get their just rewards.