Vol. 537 No. 4
43 Mr. Hogan asked the Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation if he will extend the number of areas under the RAPID-partnership and work scheme in locations in County Kilkenny and, in particular, include the areas that have been already designated in other area and community initiatives; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14625/01]
The Programme for Prosperity and Fairness has committed the Government to target investment under the national development plan on a priority basis to the 25 areas with the greatest concentration of disadvantage in the country. The areas were selected using criteria such as unemployment levels, income levels, family and social structure, educational disadvantage and high levels of rented local authority housing. On this basis no areas in County Kilkenny qualified to be among the 25 most disadvantaged areas here.
There are many other initiatives which have been put in place by Government to tackle problems associated with social inclusion for which an overall budget of £15 billion has been included in the NDP. Local authorities have also been given a wide social inclusion remit and one of the priority areas for the recently established county-city development boards is to address such matters at local level on an ongoing basis. Furthermore my colleague, the Minister for the Environment and Local Government, is developing a second strand of the RAPID programme targeting provincial towns while the Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development is developing a programme targeting rural decline entitled CLAR.
Question No. 44 answered with Question No. 23.
