The Deputy has acknowledged that the Minister has no role here. The decision to provide operational guarantees for this or any project is a matter, in the first instance, for the local authority without any reference to the Department. The Department has no knowledge of this proposal but when the matter was raised we made some inquiries. We understand the project was approved for a grant by Fáilte Ireland, as Deputy Cowley suggested, subject to the local authority agreeing to underwrite any operational losses the project might incur in ten years. According to Deputy Cowley's information, there are no projected losses at all but a net profit of €23,000 in the first year.
Local authorities generally have concerns about giving operational guarantees to any project that is not under its direct control. The local authority must make decisions with regard to its own policies, financial position and assessment of individual needs. The manager and the council should be the best people to judge this. There has been much focus on the principle of local authorities funding operational losses since the Jeanie Johnston. I understand that some time ago in Tralee there was the possibility that staff would need to be laid off because of losses. The Deputy will also recall that around that time, following a report on the Jeanie Johnston which was prepared by the former Secretary General of the Department of Finance, Mr. Seán Cromien, and the consultants Mazars, the Department of Finance wrote to every Department explaining that the report was critical of the practice of public bodies seeking and obtaining guarantees from other public bodies as a means of passing off some of the risks inherent in funding decisions.
I empathise with Deputy Cowley. I represented the island to which he referred during my time as an MEP. It has a serious unemployment problem and is very much dependent on tourism. However, this is totally outside my control.
