Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I was pleased to see a key line in the Minister of State's response, which frankly has not been confirmed to any of these groups to date, which is that the Department has agreed to continue funding for ESIF for 2024. This is a very welcome announcement.What I cannot understand, and perhaps we may be at one on this, is why those working on these key projects are being told by the council to give protective notice to their employees. I need to understand better what has happened here. As I pointed out earlier, we have had ten years to prepare for this end of funding and to put new funding in place.

My request of the Minister of State is for more information as to when he put in this request to the council for the strategic plans to be submitted and how long he has been waiting for a response. He might also say something about funding beyond 2024. I would hate to think we were in a situation where, every 12 months, we are going to go through this real concern about the future funding of projects and the future of the staff and communities involved.