Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. First, I fought hard, as did my two colleagues, to get an increase in the budget for rural Ireland. I was delighted to do that in the 2017 Estimates. The Deputy is correct, I also want the money spent. At this stage, it is far too early to make definitive assessments of likely outturns. The real story around capital takes place in the summer. My Department is liaising very closely with the local authorities and my officials are continuing to impress on them the need to have projects completed as soon as possible, as am I and the Ministers of State, Deputies Ring and Kyne. Under this year's recently launched town and village enhancement programme, local authorities will have to spend a certain amount of money before we will pay anything out. That puts more pressure on them to get the money spent, get the projects completed, get the work on the ground, get it up and running and get it started. They will not get the final money until the project is complete.

We are currently looking for expenditure on the rural schemes to the end of April. We are on to the local authorities and asking them what they have spent. They will also have to spend their 2016 allocation before we will fund them under the 2017 schemes. We are putting the pressure on. We are telling the authorities that the money they received last year is there and must be spent. We will look at how they are progressing with their spend before we will allow them to continue to spend. Some counties, as the Deputy knows, are very good at spending and other counties are a bit slower. This will put the pressure on because the town and village enhancement programme is a competitive scheme and the encouragement is there for those that are up to speed to get the money spent and get the work done on the ground. All of us here know how important these projects are in the local towns and villages. I will come back to the Deputy about the Leader scheme specifically. We will speak about that later.

I assure the Deputy that I am monitoring the situation very closely. I am looking at emerging pressures. If I need to move money into a different area, I want to do so as early as possible. I work very closely with my two Ministers of State. I believe the Minister of State, Deputy Kyne, wishes to say something on this matter.