Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

In some schemes we only provide a certain percentage of the funding which the local authorities match. As the Deputy knows, the local authorities always state they have no funding. He was quite correct in what he said in an earlier conversation, that when one gives them funding, they still complain that they do not have any. I listen to them complain every day on local radio about this, that and the other, yet when they have funding, they will not spend it. I have been dealing with CLÁR programme funding and if the local authorities have not spent money, they will be penalised. I will not give to local authorities that do not have a fair percentage of the money spent. I am not talking about a figure of 10% or 12%. I do not care who says it is not fair not to allocate funding to local authorities that are not dealing with the funding they have been given. I have examined the local improvement scheme, LIS. In one area the local authority wrote letters to the general public telling people that it had made an application under the CLÁR programme and that it was depending on it to come up with funding for the local improvement scheme. It wrote to people to tell them that we were producing the money. If the local authorities put forward proposals relating to the LIS or any other scheme, we will look at them. For now, however, we are targeting schemes and giving a big percentage of the money available, but we expect the local authorities to come up with some of the funding required. What I would like to do, but I cannot get agreement from the officials is go to communities and give the money to them. However, it is like the sports capital programme in that it takes too long and will not work, as the Deputy himself told me.