Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 23 October 2012
50. Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív asked the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government his plans for the future of RAPID and CLAR schemes; if he intends to make dormant account funds available to them; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [46304/12]
View answerThe RAPID - revitalising areas by planning, investment and development - programme targets 51 of the most disadvantaged areas in the country. The programme is committed to directing State assistance towards improving quality of life and access to opportunities for communities in disadvantaged areas.
The RAPID programme is one of a number of interventions that address social exclusion and disadvantage. RAPID area implementation teams, AITs, are important implementation bodies within the county development board, CDB, process. As part of the reform of local government, CDBs are to be phased out and, in effect, replaced by socioeconomic committees. This will have implications for the RAPID programme which will be addressed in due course.
In May 2009 the following towns were included in the RAPID programme: Ballina, Dungarvan, Waterford, Enniscorthy, Mullingar and Rathkeale, but no money was provided for them. I have been able to provide €440,000 in 2012 for the five new RAPID programme towns to fund a number of projects designed to improve the infrastructure of these communities. These projects are in the process of drawing down this funding. Further moneys from the dormant accounts fund would be subject to budgetary provision in 2013 and subsequent years.
With unavoidably reduced funding available to my Department, the CLÁR programme which was targeted at tackling infrastructural and services deficits in depopulated rural areas was wound down, from an outturn of the order of €24 million in 2008 to an allocation of €500,000 in 2012. This provision in 2012 is to be used to meet existing commitments arising during the year. No funding applications have been accepted since August 2008 under the main CLÁR programme measures and, in view of the difficulties with the public finances, it is not proposed to open the programme to new applications. The capital expenditure review, prepared by the Department of Finance in July 2010, indicated that relevant investment needs should be funded in the future by the relevant Departments with primary sectoral responsibility in the areas concerned.
Does the Minister accept that the CLÁR programme deals with the cost-benefit issue that often arises in rural areas? Does he also accept that his Department which has responsibility for water and sewerage services could reintroduce elements of the programme to ensure, for example, that areas without group water schemes would have them and that villages without sewerage schemes would have them?
With regard to the RAPID programme, is the Minister willing to make €100,000 a year available to each of the 51 RAPID AITs, as was done previously from the dormant accounts fund, particularly in view of the fact that there is almost €100 million of non-committed moneys in the fund?
This money could be put to good use in the 51 most deprived communities in the country.
As the Deputy knows, I would love to be able to give a commitment to allocate more moneys in 2013 from the sources he identified. In the case of the dormant accounts, we are precluded from doing so by the troika. The Department of Finance will verify that under the general Government borrowing requirement, the dormant accounts moneys referred to by the Deputy are included under the general Government borrowing ceiling. It is hard to explain to people that this money is available and can be drawn down at any time but is counted as borrowings because it is seen as money owed by the State to individuals who may have a dormant account in the future. Notwithstanding this, we were able to achieve some savings this year to provide €88,000 for five towns. I know the Deputy would have loved to have done this in 2010.
I did much more than that.
The Deputy was not able to do it because he had no money.
When I was in the Department, I was giving money every year.
The Deputy served as Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government for a short period before I entered office in 2011. Even though he announced the allocation of this money in 2010, he was not able to provide it in 2011.
The Minister will recall that the then Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs was responsible for dormant accounts.
It is not a problem for me to announce that various towns will be part of programmes such as RAPID and CLÁR, but the money has to be provided. The Deputy made an announcement on five towns, but he was not able to provide the money. I was glad to be able to find some for that purpose.
Will the Minister agree that a simple change in the law would result in significant moneys being made available from the dormant accounts? He is saying the legal situation is that there is a contingent liability on all 472 of the dormant accounts dating back to day one.
I did not say that.
A simple change in the law would free up this money for expenditure. People with dormant or unclaimed accounts who find their money would receive it from the financial institutions in the first instance, from the reserve in the second instance and from any new dormant accounts fund in the third instance. Does the Minister agree that if he took a little action, he could free up this €100 million in order that neither the troika nor the Department of Finance would have a valid argument for not releasing it?
I would be glad to do so if it were possible.
It is possible.
I am not able to do it because it is not possible to do so.
It is possible.
It is not because we have to count the dormant accounts moneys as part of the general Government borrowing requirement of the State.
There is a contingent liability.
The Deputy knew the answers to these questions before he asked them. When he was there, he could not do it. He knows what the legal position is quite well.
I do.
Equally, he knows the constraints in the context of the memorandum of understanding signed with the troika in 2010. We cannot do everything we would like to do. I would love to have the luxury that the Deputy had when he was Minister.
This is one thing the Minister could do.
