Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am sorry that I had to step out there for a while. I did not realise the meeting would go on this long and I had another meeting planned. We are hearing a lot about Cavan-Monaghan here so I am going to be little parochial and mention Kildare. I have a point rather than a question as to the basis on which money is assigned to Leader programmes and the deprivation element. In Kildare, we received one of the lowest allocations in the last tranche of Leader funding. There are areas of Kildare which have plenty of deprivation. At times, we struggle because we are perceived to be the horsey county in which everyone has a horse and people think we are grand because we are right beside Dublin. The Minister of State, Deputy Kyne, will always tell us about the bad land in poor Connemara but there are plenty of areas in Kildare which have difficulties. Athy was a RAPID town and there is rising youth unemployment there. I have concerns about the whole mechanism by which funding is decided and I am determined to see an increase of Leader funding for Kildare.

Despite its population of 210,000, the county received less money than County Leitrim. Fair play to Leitrim but Kildare has a much larger population and has plenty of good projects that could be funded.

As I stated, I had to leave the meeting briefly. I apologise, therefore, if I repeat questions asked by other Deputies. What role will local authorities play in the roll-out of rural broadband? This area offers significant potential for local authority involvement and I am aware the Minister plans to engage with local authorities in this area. I ask her to elaborate a little on that.