Frank Fahey (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

The Minister states the amount of money at the beginning of the year but that amount cannot be ring-fenced due to the requirement of Ministers to take account of their other responsibilities. We have agreed to disagree with the DLCG on this issue. Senator O'Rourke was herself a good Minister in the education and even the health areas. As I have pointed out time and again since the start of this debate, if one requires a Minister to state at the beginning of the year the amount of money being provided for disability services and also requires him or her to provide for multi-annual spending, it would take a brave Minister to withdraw some or all of the money that has been dedicated to disability services. Due to the responsibility for good governance and expenditure of public moneys, we cannot simply ring-fence a specific amount of money.

The ethos of the Bill is that it statutorily underpins the foundation of increased expenditure. One cannot take matters much further. I had frank discussions with the Minister for Finance and his officials on this issue.