I propose, with your permission. a Cheann Comhairle, to reply to Questions Nos. 119 to 122, together.
As has already been announced, it has been decided to transfer the provisions for Urban and Rural Employment Schemes, Minor Employment and Bog Development Schemes and the Rural Improvements Scheme to the Vote for Local Government, and the provision for Miscellaneous Schemes to the Vote for Public Works and Buildings. The transfer will be effective from 1st April, 1967, and is designed to enable the Minister for Local Government to consider the re-organisation, in the interests of efficiency and economy, of the services transferred to him.
No immediate change is contemplated in the procedure for carrying out the schemes financed from the miscellaneous subhead. As regards the other subheads, the Minister for Local Government is reviewing the operation of the schemes, and in the meantime they are being operated on the same basis, and by the same staff, as they have been since the beginning of the present financial year.
Two thousand two hundred and fiftyfive inquiries for grant have been received since the acceptance of new applications under the Rural Improvements Scheme was suspended. A decision on the resumption of applications will be taken very shortly when the amount of the provision proposed for the coming year has been determined.