Brendan Ryan (Labour)

The Minister's response is disappointing. I have listened very carefully to what he had to say and either he is wrong or he is being disingenuous. There is nothing in this legislation which states that the Government when dealing with the Minister's bringing forth of results of assessments to Cabinet must have regard to anything. The Minister must have regard to the approved plan when preparing the proposals out of which come the invitations for people to apply. Such applications must then be evaluated according to what appear to be more transparent criteria. That is fine though it is not what I would like to see in the Bill. I prefer the old system. The additional Government amendments make that system better and less open to suspicion, whether valid or otherwise.

However, no conditions or criteria are contained in the following subsections as listed on page 13. I recall that a previous Minister for Social Welfare, a member of the Minister's party, when small grants for voluntary organisations were first instituted, went around with the cheques in his pocket and gave them out to the various organisations as he met them. I do not know what criteria were used but the clear statement was one of a Minister bearing gifts. I have lived with the reality of politics. No self-respecting politician will try to gain political credit for anything over which he or she has any influence. I do not believe anyone of us are that naive.

It would be possible to redraft the section and to state that only proposals for expenditure in excess of €300,000, the figure used by the Minister, will go before Cabinet. A great deal more could be done. How is it that in the old scheme of things small-scale expenditure of less than €300,000 could be decided on by the board without reference to anybody? Incidentally, I agree with the Minister's question on sustainability. It is a perfectly reasonable question to ask. I have no problems with it. However, I do not understand how what the Minister says he wants is reconcilable with an open-ended invitation to Government, given the political pressures under which Governments operate, to bend the rules. Of course there will be political flak for not doing so. Governments know that whether they do something or not there will always be political flak. It will be the political judgment of Government at a particular time as to which decision was the most politically expeditious. I do not suggest Governments do so all the time but there can be times when they decide it is better to ignore those rules and grant the money to what is considered to be most useful politically.

Despite the Minister's best intentions, once these matters go to Cabinet they are out of his hands. I do not understand why he is allowing that to happen unless it is as suspected by many of us that a particular person in Cabinet wants access to the funds because the issue is so big it could be politically useful. Otherwise, the matter would end with the structure of evaluation and some role for Cabinet on major expenditures to ensure good sense prevailed. The idea that a proposal to grant €10,000 to a small community project, áit éigin in iarthar Chorcha Dhuibhne, 230 miles from Dublin would have to go to Cabinet for approval suggests either that we will collapse under paperwork or that there is some malevolent intent involved.

I am open to persuasion. The Minister is very plausible and I am capable of being persuaded. However, he has not yet persuaded me that there is any genuinely good reason, in terms of good public administration, to leave such flexibility open to Government.