Martin Mansergh (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the allocation to the Office of Public Works for flood relief, which has increased from €20 million to €32 million. This will be particularly helpful in Clonmel which has been prone to flooding. The OPW has shifted from the acquisition of sites to building, a sign of the progress being made with decentralisation.

This Government's support for sport has been outstanding. Of particular relevance to my county is the extension of the sports company scheme. Groups and communities involved in the arts have also welcomed the exceptional funding granted. At local level and in some of the national institutions, such as the National Concert Hall, there is a need for new or extended premises.

I draw the attention of Fine Gael to an article by its former leader, Dr. Garrett FitzGerald, in which he highlighted the enormous improvement in life expectancy that has taken place since 1997. That surely is the bottom line indicator of improvement in the health service.

It is not always publicised but it is implicit in the figures that the Minister, having previously served as Minister for Foreign Affairs, has lived up to and helped his colleague to live up to the commitment on development aid. It is important we stress that to his credit. There was not always the same commitment in the Department of Finance in the past to this area.

There have been major increases in agriculture to fund agreements under social partnership on REPS, the suckler cow premium and other grants. I noticed some disagreement in the Labour Party on defence. Senator Ryan and the Peace and Neutrality Alliance consider it a good thing that we are not spending too much on defence but Deputy Costello criticised the size of the increase for the equipment budget. Perhaps the party needs further internal debate on the matter.

We all welcome the money being provided for the Departments of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and Education and Science for innovation and research. It is important we fund this area.

Points have been made about the small amounts of money for local authorities but this entirely ignores the authorities' own resources and the increased money for community programmes such as CLÁR and RAPID.