Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 26 September 2023
50. Deputy Pádraig O'Sullivan asked the Minister for Rural and Community Development if Cork County Council and Cork City Council have provided for the expenditure of the full €2,755,923 local improvement scheme allocations for 2023, and if so, the reason; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [41293/23]
View answer53. Deputy Pádraig O'Sullivan asked the Minister for Rural and Community Development if she will ensure that any local improvement scheme work not undertaken by Cork County Council and Cork City Council will be contracted out thus ensuring the full value of this year’s allocations; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [41294/23]
View answerI ask the Minister for Rural and Community Development if Cork County Council and Cork City Council have provided for the full expenditure of the full €2,755,923 local improvement scheme, LIS; and if she will make a statement on the matter.
I propose to take Questions Nos. 50 and 53 together.
The local improvement scheme, LIS, supports the improvement of rural roads and laneways that are not normally maintained by local authorities. As part of Our Rural Future: Rural Development Policy 2021-2025, the Government is committed to ensuring that the LIS is funded into the future. The scheme makes an important contribution to connectivity, which I view as an important issue for rural Ireland, whether it be access to homes, farms or outdoor amenities. Indeed, I have seen firsthand the important contribution that this scheme has made in rural communities right across the country.
The LIS was introduced by my Department in 2017 following a number of years with no dedicated funding. Since 2017, my Department has allocated almost €114 million to the scheme. In recent years, I have sought to allocate additional funding to the scheme where possible, and I was happy to be in a position to do so again earlier this year. The scheme is administered at a local level by local authorities, and I am anxious to ensure that the allocations in each county are fully expended each year. With this in mind, I have asked my officials to maintain a close engagement with our delivery partners in the local authorities to ensure that the funding available under the range of schemes operated by my Department is drawn down and used in the most efficient and effective way possible. As part of this process, I am aware that the delivery of improvement works under the LIS is in many instances contracted out by local authorities.
Between 2017 and 2023, over €10.1 million was provided to Cork County Council, which has resulted in improvement works taking place on more than 200 roads, benefitting landowners and residents in these rural areas. For 2023 alone, Cork has been allocated more than €2.7 million in funding under the scheme to fund works on its approved list of 47 priority roads this year. The local authority has advised my officials that it is on track to complete works that have been approved under the 2023 scheme.
My Department maintains ongoing contact with local authorities in order to monitor demand and, importantly, the capacity to deliver under the LIS. The scheme criteria and the mechanism for funding allocation is reviewed accordingly each year. The issue of funding for the LIS has been raised on a number of occasions in this forum, and I continue to engage with my colleague, the Minister for Transport, Deputy Eamon Ryan, regarding his Department contributing to a jointly funded local improvement scheme. I will continue to work with our partners in local authorities to ensure that the LIS delivers projects that are of real benefit locally and that contribute to the Government's vision for rural Ireland as outlined in Our Rural Future: Rural Development Policy 2021-2025.
I thank the Minister for the response. The Minister does not need to be told she is from a fairly rural constituency. Even in the part of the world I am from - although I cover the northern part of Cork city - there is a large rural hinterland. We had a tough enough couple of months during the summer. It was very wet. Many roads are in a state of disrepair. It is great to see that Cork County Council is on track to draw down that full allocation, as the Minister has assured me in her response. I look forward to that being drawn down. The Minister knows the importance of the scheme. Even in my days as a county councillor on Cork County Council, it was very important to get out among people and offer this alternative to people because, as the Minister knows, these are private roads in most circumstances.
I will touch on a couple of other local authorities. I understand that Kerry and Galway have been inundated with applications. I think in the case of Galway there is a waiting list of two years to get on the scheme in that county. Deputy Healy-Rae was quoted as saying here one evening that there are approximately 800 applications in Kerry that are also on a waiting list. I will therefore impress on the Minister that if further funding was to be allocated or to become available that those counties that are proactive in compiling lists are considered. While some have compiled lists and while some have extensive waiting lists, I have also read in the media that when the call-out goes out, many counties do not draw down the full amount. It is imperative that all counties that are allocated moneys would draw those down.
I agree with the Deputy; when they are allocated the money, they would want to spend it. I like to keep the pressure on to spend it, because if they do not spend the money, I have to give back. It is not that easy to get in the first place.
As the Deputy knows, €114 million has been spent in the past five to six years. I would love to put more money into funding the LIS. I did put more in this year and last year. In total, I allocated an additional €16 million in July of this year. The funding must be spent on upgrade works by local authorities within the calendar year. We understand, as the Deputy does, that local authorities have competing priorities and different levels of ambition and they are faced with capacity constraints that vary from authority to authority. Each local authority decides locally what works are prioritised to be submitted to my Department for funding.
In 2021 and 2022, I doubled the allocation for the LIS using savings that were identified within the Department. In 2023 alone, I allocated almost €30 million to the scheme. As the Deputy knows, the lanes are the same as roads in rural Ireland. There can be multiple houses on them. Cars drive on them. Milk lorries go up them. They need to have a decent surface. For that reason, LIS-like roads were always funded by the Department of Transport. The Department of Transport has a very large capital budget, far in excess of what my Department has. I have raised it with the Minister for Transport, Deputy Eamon Ryan, on a number of occasions to see if that Department would co-fund. If they matched what I am putting in from my Department it would make a huge hole in it. It really would get rid of those waiting lists. We have done a lot, and I can say that the lists are much shorter than they were five or six years ago, but we still have to keep working at it.
I want to finish by thanking the Minister again for her response. Some local authorities are better at drawing down the money than others, and that is evidenced in much of the reading I was doing before I came in this evening.
If I could touch on something else, the Minister spoke about working with the Department of Transport, and possibly with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. A bugbear of mine is when roads are upgraded, they are an asset to everybody who has chipped in. The State has chipped in a significant amount of money. Yet, the process of taking charge is quite difficult and onerous. That might vary from local authority to local authority, but I ask that the Minister would consider speaking about this with her colleagues in the Department of Transport and the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. If a road is upgraded, if a hefty investment has been put in by the State, and if the contribution has been made by the local community, I ask that serious consideration would be given to the process of taking in charge in order to ensure that we get better maintained roads into the future, as well as to increase the likelihood of the road surviving its typical life span of 15 to 20 years. I would appreciate if the Minister could comment on that as well.
I thank the Deputy. We fund the roads through the LIS scheme. They are private lanes. I do not know about the process of taking in charge, but after time has passed and after roads have fallen into disrepair, one can reapply. I have seen instances of people who have reapplied to have them resurfaced. It is not at the same expense that they were originally, but it is up to the landowners to try to keep them in good shape.
I received a message this evening from someone who had been waiting a long number of years. The person sent a photograph of a LIS lane that had just been repaired. My goodness me, but it was done to a very high standard. A decent amount of tar is put on the roads. A good job is done and the roads last for a long time if the landowners look after them.
It is a popular scheme. I am committed to it and will continue to support it insofar as I can.
