Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The allocation for the rural development scheme is €15.3 million and the Minister indicated that approximately €5.5 million has been spent. Give or take, there is nearly €10 million to be spent in the remaining two months and 16 days of 2018. The Minister reduced the allocation for LEADER from €35 million to €23 million. I am now working on a base of €23 million. Some €15 million has been spent, which means €8 million is available to spend by the end of the year. The allocation for the town and village scheme is €15 million, of which €8.3 million has been spent. On the local improvement scheme, the Minister had to shake the bushes there. I grant that it can be frustrating trying to get local authorities to send in the shagging bills. They whinge about money but when they do work, it is a matter of trying to get money out of them. There is a €10 million allocation, of which €4.8 million has been spent.

The challenge I see is that despite the reallocation of the money into community, which I welcome and which we will discuss under the community heading, expenditure has fallen far short of the allocation under each of the headings. None of them is pushing in there right up to the wall. Is the Minister still confident that he will spend the reallocated €66 million under the rural heading on capital? If I take LEADER on a pro ratabasis, the figure of €23 million will not be reached? In other words, after ten months I should have ten twelfths of the allocation spent. Ten months will have elapsed shortly and not much will be spent from 21 December onwards. One would have the mature liabilities in. I have a simple question. Is the Minister still confident or will he reallocate more money on the underspending subheads? If so, where will it be allocated?

I am bitterly disappointed and I am sure the Minister is tearing his hair out. The allocation for the LIS was made in January and having shaken the bushes, only half of it has been spent nine and a half months later. The best time of the year, summer when one could work until 11 p.m., is gone. We are into dark, wet evenings unsuitable for working on roads, yet only half the money has been spent. Is the Minister still confident he can spend all the money? Will he reallocate unspent funds to areas where they might be spent? On the LIS, what can anybody do to shake up local authorities so that they spend money we give them? Why not refuse to give them any more money until they spend what they have because they do not seem to understand that?