Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

They agree it was right to interfere and the system which existed was not good enough. It did not deliver people their rights. I have huge sympathy for the wording of the amendment. I thought long and hard as to whether there was any way to amend that part of the Bill which baldly states the Government may approve the submission with or without amendment. I weighed the matter carefully and will think about it again. I will perhaps go back to the Dáil on the matter and come back to the Seanad if necessary. When I considered all the checks and balances, and tried to visualise real circumstances, I felt to take away such a provision would take away the right to use common sense where needed.

Let us first consider the checks. If the Government were to reject the plan, it would have to reject the concept of a tranche of payments. We also amended this, which is the worry. The Government would have to regard the plan, the criteria laid down for that particular measure, the approved proposals and types of project, as well as assessments carried out and recommendations made. Section 5 states the Minister shall ensure that within one month after receipt of the Government's approval of the submission, a statement containing a list of the approved measures and projects specifying the amounts to be disbursed from the account for the purposes of each of them is laid before each House of the Oireachtas and made available to the public. If we ignore that provision, the board would be on us like a tonne of bricks.

The Government has a role to play if it wants to identify more plans further down the list and allow for a lower threshold. However, it will cause itself much grief unless it does so systematically.