Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

First, the Deputy asked me about the bigger schemes, which do present more challenges. Very ambitious applications come in and sometimes they just cannot deliver on them as quickly as they thought. Sometimes they would run into difficulties with the planning process, although they have to have planning permission now before they can get approved. We are trying to focus on projects that are as shovel ready as possible. Sometimes there are delays in procurement or there might be some changes to the design, often to make it better, and that is fair enough. There are a myriad of different reasons for projects not being delivered, and if you were looking for excuses, you would find plenty. I am putting the pressure on but I have to accept there is a fairly substantial workload in local authorities because they are delivering for housing, active travel and climate change. They are delivering a lot of things. I remember back in 2012 and 2013, the local authorities were at sea because they were not sure what their role was in a number of areas, but now they have plenty to do. They have a lot on their plate and they have to prioritise delivery themselves. That is why I am looking at this now, and if applicants do not have a record of delivery, that will be taken into consideration when we are allocating more money. If they can spend it, they will get it. If they submit fancy plans but they cannot deliver, that is no good to me. I want the money spent on the ground and I am going around different parts of the country now. I was down in Deputy Ó Cathasaigh's constituency, in Mount Congreve, to see the wonderful investment there. I visited St. Declan's Way and Cappoquin, which is doing rightly. It got a lot of investment and it needed it. I want to see the money spent and the pressure is on.

When it comes to the town and village fund, the allocations are smaller but that is going well. It is much quicker. Of course, with the bigger projects, the attention to detail has to be greater and procurement processes and so on kick in. With a heritage building, for example, applicants can run into a pile of trouble they did not think they would run into. Even with simple things like streetscape enhancement where we asked applicants to paint houses, some counties said they could not paint the houses before the deadline because the rain was so bad. It was washing the paint off the walls as soon as they got it up. What could we do in a case like that only tell them to wait for a dry day? There is no point in wasting the paint.

On lanes, the Deputy is from the south of the country and I am sure the condition of the roads is a lot better down in his county.