asked the Minister for Local Government whether special grants for tourist roads will be allocated in the next financial year for the improvement of all or any of the roads from (a) Cashel Cross to Toombeola, (b) Moycullen through Callownamuck to Oldchapel, (c) Streamstown Bridge to Cleggan, (d) Tully Cross to Salruck, (e) Cornamona to Cloughbrack, (f) Cloughbrack Cross (American Junction) to Drishagaun, (g) Cornamona to Dooras, (h) Dooghty West to Crimlin, and (i) Cleggan to Moyard Bridge, County Galway.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Special Grants for Galway Roads.
It is not possible to give any information at this stage of the roads that will be improved under any moneys which may be made available in the forthcoming financial year for the improvement of roads of tourist value in the Gaeltacht and congested areas.
Can the Minister say when the schemes for a given year are prepared? Is he suggesting that the authorities concerned wait until the beginning of the financial year before they prepare the scheme?
That is not so. The schemes are submitted before the end of the preceding financial year and the roads referred to by the Deputy have never yet been included in any of the schemes submitted by the local authority. If the Deputy wishes to have any of these roads included in any schemes which will be approved of by the Department, he must, first of all, get the local authority to submit them.
With all due respect, the Minister is side-tracking the information I want to get. My question was altered in the wording. I have asked specifically about the expenditure of money which was specially provided some years ago for the development and improvement of tourist roads —that is the category of the roads— which are apart from the ordinary road work of the county council; and will the Minister have regard to that aspect of my question in giving me his reply?
The Deputy's question is a very clear one: to ask me whether special grants for tourist roads will be allocated in the next financial year? My reply is that it is not a matter for me. It is a matter for the local authorities to submit the particular schemes to me, and that they have not done.
With all due respect the question I put down mentions specifically the source from which tourist roads received special allocations, starting three years back. That reference was left out of my question.
Do not blame me for that.
Can the Minister now. knowing exactly to what I am referring, give me the information?
When the Deputy amends his question and puts down what he intends to put down, I will reply to it.
The Deputy put down what he intended to put down, and it was not the Deputy who altered it.
I am not responsible.