Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

On the question of decision making, the board must have three criteria, namely, appropriate skills, regional balance and gender balance. The next issue is whether it is for capital or current expenditure. It can be for both but in certain ways it lends itself to capital expenditure because capital expenditure by its nature is one-off.

The next issue raised is whether it is for current expenditure. My view is that if we are going to spend it on current programmes, the Government must be aware that when the dormant accounts money runs out it will need to pick up the tab. One cannot start very good schemes, run them for five years and then forget them. The money will eventually run out. The social and economic issue is incredibly wide. I intend to have much more detailed criteria on the operation of the schemes.

I am a little disappointed the original legislation did not place greater emphasis on community because it is argued nowadays that social and economic disadvantage applies to everybody. Last Monday in Galway, disabled people put to me the valid point that they are not seeking to be boxed out as disabled persons but facilitated to play a full role in the community. The construction of a footpath to enable them to get to a meeting or the erection of traffic lights with special bleepers is a mainstream issue, rather than a boxed issue, for disabled people. All traffic lights should have such a facility.

I would like the dormant accounts fund to be focused on the area of community, with special emphasis on people with a social disadvantage and their full integration into communities rather than treating them as separate from the rest of the community. Those of us who live in rural areas view our communities as a totality, consisting of the old, young, disabled and able bodied, rather than as a number of sections. It is a tricky balance.

I am strongly in favour of concentrating on voluntary community school schemes. We should not fall for the argument, for example, that an entrepreneur providing jobs in a RAPID area is entitled to funding because he or she is addressing social disadvantage through job creation. That would be nonsense and a subversion of what has been the purpose of the funds from the outset.