Ms Finola Moylette:

On the point about putting people first, socioeconomic committees, SECs, and the abolition of local development companies, at this stage the Minister’s plans are not fully developed but as far as I am aware there are no plans to abolish local development companies. The plans are focused on better alignment of local development and local authority delivery. There is no plan, as far as I am aware, to abolish local development companies or to lose the expertise they have built up over a couple of decades.

On the number of trails, infrastructure and funding for maintenance, our walks scheme currently maintains the 40 trails that are part of the scheme and we will continue to do so, but for the wider national network there is no funding available to continue their maintenance. We are currently trying to put together a package of proposals for Government that will address the issue. We can see that a serious issue will arise in that regard if we do not manage and continue to maintain the infrastructure we have, let alone develop new infrastructure, which is vitally important for us. In terms of additional agencies we want to bring on board, the likes of Coillte has a mandate and responsibility for recreation but CIE and local authorities do not. We would like to bring more such bodies into the net, in that they would have an official responsibility in the area. Those are all issues we are currently examining. Perhaps Mr. Moore could address anything else that we have not covered.