Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State, Deputy Kyne, will take some of the questions that cover his area.

The first question that Deputy O'Keeffe raised is the most important question of the day because it is the most important issue in planning for the future of rural Ireland. At the moment my officials are working with senior officials within the Cabinet sub-committee on the national framework plan. I was asked if I would come before this committee. I have no difficulty coming here because I have already made major submissions to the plan myself. I am sure that the Deputy and his party have made submissions as well. Other organisations have also made submissions. The Deputy is quite correct that this is going to be a very important plan for all of rural Ireland, and my job at Government level is to make sure that this plan is framed in the correct way and will support the regions, small towns and big towns. We also have to ensure that when the plan is announced, the funding will be going with it. We need the funding and the infrastructure, and we need to monitor that plan in a very careful way. I certainly will be doing that, and I have no problem coming in here to discuss that with the committee at any time. The committee has a big role in this plan. I also hope that my colleague, the Minister for Housing, Community and Local Government, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, comes before the committee as soon as possible as well. This committee should make its views known in terms of what it wants in this plan.

The Deputy is saying what I have been saying about functions. We both want there to be more functions. Every Department that has anything to do with rural Ireland should have some functions allocated to it. We have already had some elements transferred from the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection, Deputy Doherty, including the community services programme. That will come under my Department from 1 January. I have also mentioned this to other Ministers and the Taoiseach . There are schemes in other Departments that should be coming over to my Department. I compliment the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection, Deputy Doherty, because she had no qualms about it and was quite prepared to pass the community services programme to my Department. I am sure that we can have further discussions about the other schemes she has in her Department. The Deputy is talking my language.

The Minister of State at the Department of Rural and Community Development, Deputy Kyne, has a delegated function. I hope that the members of this committee understand what that means. We have no problem giving the committee any information it requires. The Minister of State himself will speak about it. He is responsible for the Western Development Commission, the Atlantic economic corridor task force, the roll-out of broadband, the national planning framework, dormant accounts, supporting the national organisations community and voluntary funding schemes, the public participation of citizens engagement policy forum, the charity regulatory authority, the Control of Dogs Act and issues affecting rural communities, including business community streaming for Brexit. He will take any of the issues that have been raised. It has gone through the Cabinet and the committee should have that list because I asked for it to be sent over this morning.

The issue of the day is funding. At the moment we are monitoring this hour to hour and day to day. I am meeting my officials about the issue this afternoon. We have been in constant contact with the local authorities about prefunding. We have not made any decision on that. I am hoping that the local authorities will certainly spend the money they have been given, and I know that there has been a major effort over recent weeks on that issue. We will be monitoring this day to day, and we hope that the local authorities will draw down the funding that has been allocated to them.

The issue of the underspend in the LEADER programme was also raised. It is causing people great difficulty. I took €10 million from that programme this year and put it into the local improvement scheme, LIS. If I had put €20 million and another €10 million next year, the Deputy would be saying that we were cutting funding to the scheme, so I did not do that. I am glad that we did spend that €10 million on the LIS and I am glad that we introduced that scheme. The LEADER programme is one that we are monitoring. There has been a major improvement since July, with 31 changes made, and I hope that we will see more approvals and more drawdown. It is causing a bit of difficulty at the moment.

Deputy Canning asked about the local authorities. To be fair to the local authorities, we were late in allocating some of the schemes this year. This is a new Department, and the Deputy, having set up a Department himself, knows that it is very difficult and that it takes a bit of time, work and effort. We have made a lot of progress in a very short time. We are expected to be a fully functioning Department and we are only at the set-up stage. We have progressed rapidly in a very short time, and I am hopeful that there will be a big improvement in the spend by the local authorities and LEADER between now and the end of the month.