Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 17 February 2022
48. Deputy Thomas Pringle asked the Minister for Rural and Community Development the actions that her Department has taken to implement recommendation number 4 contained in the 2020 report entitled Focused Policy Assessment: Local Improvement Scheme; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [8659/22]
View answerThe Irish Government Economic and Evaluation Service (IGEES) is an integrated cross-Government service. It seeks to enhance the role of economic evaluation and value for money analysis in public policy making.
The Focussed Policy Assessment report to which the Deputy refers was conducted by IGEES staff in my Department. Recommendation No.4 of the report was to estimate the scale of the relevant non-public road network in Ireland, which is the focus of works under the Local Improvement Scheme
This recommendation, along with the other recommendations in the report, are being considered by a working group comprising members of the Local Government sector and officials from my Department.
My officials have discussed a range of possibilities with Ordnance Survey Ireland on how to develop a better understanding of the potential scale of the non-public road network. There are clearly challenges in accurately estimating the scale of the non-public road network from the data available but my officials will continue to explore how to achieve this aim.
As part of 'Our Rural Future', the Government is committed to ensuring that the Local Improvement Scheme (LIS) is funded into the future. This reflects the important contribution which the scheme makes to connectivity in rural Ireland. The funding allocations for each Local Authority under the 2022 scheme will be announced shortly.
