Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister and Minister of State's comments. The time of this meeting clashed with other meetings and, unfortunately, I could not be here to listen to the Minister's presentation.

The Department of Rural and Community Development is of great interest to me as I represent the very rural constituency of Cavan-Monaghan, which also includes part of County Meath. I compliment the Minister on the work done by his Department. The funding provided is hugely important for rural constituencies in the form of CLÁR, LIS, LEADER, digital hubs and the town and village renewal scheme. All of the schemes are very worthy and have borne fruit in towns and villages in my constituency.

I have spoken at length with the Minister about CLÁR funding. One can see from the applications submitted to the Department that the vast amount of them were from schools. Presumably, the schools cannot get funding for traffic calming measures, playgrounds and exercise facilities in any other way. People in County Cavan are delighted to see that Drumkilly national school, Milltown national school, the alleyways in the Drumbannon estate, Bailieborough, Billis national school, Darley national school and Mullahoran national school were successful under measure 1 and measure 2 applications by Cavan County Council. If one reads the project descriptions in the application form,s one will discover that the reasons are exactly what I mentioned in respect of schools finding it difficult to get funding for traffic calming measures, carparks, footpaths, soft play areas and all-weather pitches. Therefore, CLÁR funding is hugely important to small communities and schools that have no other way to access funding.

As the Minister said himself, the Department is a victim of its own success in the sense that there has been a deluge of applications. Today, I wish to refer to Scoil Bhríde, Killeshandra, St. Mary's boys national school, Belturbet, Shannon Gaels GAA club, Bruskey national school, Ballynarry national school, Trivia House, Swanlinbar, St. Felim's national school, Ballinagh, St. Felim's national school or the Vale school, Bailieborough, and Kingscourt community centre. I appreciate that the Minister cannot fund them all but these are very worthy cases and the funding will be spent on groundworks, drainage, fencing, extensions to existing playgrounds, multipurpose game areas and the resurfacing of all-weather pitches.

They are the disappointed applicants. In the Minister's perusal of the applications,do they need to be strengthened in any way or has it simply become so competitive that he cannot do it all? How can we, on an all-party basis, help to ensure there will be funds in place in order that all such worthy applications will be successful? The Minister might comment on whether it would be worth their while reapplying to him.

It is wonderful to see the local improvement scheme, LIS, up and running again. As the Minister will be aware, the scheme was closed for the receipt of applications for a period of ten years during which time many local authorities did right by people by continuing to accept their applications. For example, a man in his autumn years, Mr. Seamus Clarke, in Killinkere, County Cavan applied for the scheme almost ten years ago around the time I started in politics in 2009.