Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

On the budget restriction on county enterprise boards, to be fair, the boards know their budget for the year and they have to stick within it. There has been a tendency for some of them to spend their allocation in the first quarter of the year, and that is not an ideal way in which to proceed. There was an issue with some money towards the end of last year, which might have resulted in front loading. I will certainly review the funding, but we are all under strict budget restrictions. If there is scope for releasing money for good projects we will try to do that, but it would only be later in the year when we have seen how the funding is working out. As members know, we have to hit stringent budgetary targets.

The initiatives on access to finance are about encouraging banks to lend. They include partial loan guarantees and the development of alternative lending mechanisms such as microfinance. On tax incentives for savers to invest in business projects, the previous Government redeveloped the business expansion scheme. It still awaits sign-off by the European Commission on state aid rules, but it is there. We can consider the matter in relation to the forthcoming budget if there are issues, but the fact that it has not got out of the traps yet may mean that there are some difficulties in resolving issues in the area.

There was a perfect contrast between Senator White's comment that it would be lethal to bring county enterprise boards under local authorities and Senator Cullinane's comment that it would be excellent to do that.