Catherine Byrne (Dublin South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I can only give the reply that I have in front of me. Unfortunately the Minister of State with responsibility for people with disabilities cannot be here to listen to the Senator's concerns. I will relate them to him.

I do not believe that we as Ministers should have an influence on decisions made by different groups around the country. I know the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection, Deputy Regina Doherty, and the Minister of State with responsibility for people with disabilities, Deputy Finian McGrath, would agree with me. There are criteria and they were stated in the reply. I do not know why some of the organisations the Senator speaks about did not get money. I can understand visually from the map that some places or organisations have not received funding. Maybe there are flaws in the process, I do not know. If there was something wrong with their applications it may have helped if they had been assisted in some way. I will bring the Senator's concerns and his anger - because I can see he is angry about this - back to the Minister and the Minister of State and ask them to look at the map, and speak to Pobal to see if there is any way it can consider an appeals process, particularly for the projects the Senator has been speaking about. It would be helpful if he could send me the map.