Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The Minister gave a clear indication of her view of the underspend on RRDF and I share her view. The rural regeneration and development fund exists for a reason. It does some outstanding work. The Minister visited Cappoquin and saw how that money can be put to good use if it is really focused and people are moving on with the plans. Are we seeing an underspend across the board or are some areas struggling to spend it for whatever reason? Is it just a capacity problem in the economy to deliver on these projects or have some people applied for projects that they were not in a position to build out in the period of time?

The flip side of that coin is that I understand the Minister not wanting to hand that money back, so a large chunk of it has gone into the local improvement scheme. I might not share the Minister's view on the spending on small roads across the country. I can give the Minister a context, before anybody makes an accusation, and invite her to drive the lane that I grew up on and that my parents still live on. In case anyone thinks I live on a perfectly marbled, Dublin 4 surface, I know very well the need for the LIS in many cases. The people on the lane would not club in to pay their part under the LIS so I am still trying to get chippings put into the various potholes, but that is another day's work. Whatever about the LIS and the roads, is there space to start putting some of this money into what the CLÁR programme used to do in relation to footpaths? I could point the Minister to Dunhill, just out the road from where I am living. The village has active travel funding that is being used to design a scheme which essentially involves a footpath that will bring people from Cois Coille into the school but it cannot access the next stage of the funding. If we have money coming back from RRDF, I would love to see that invested in those small rural towns and villages that need a top-up in terms of active travel infrastructure. When I talk about active travel infrastructure, I am really talking about footpaths to allow children to walk to school. While the Minister and Deputy Naughten might like the LIS a little more than I do, I would like to see that money flowing through the likes of a CLÁR scheme into those small measures that could really make a big difference in terms of providing active travel infrastructure throughout the country. There are two sides to the one question there.