Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I do not have any lanes and cannot engage in one-upmanship with anyone. In any event, I have two questions. First, is there going to be another round of community halls funding this year?

We had a discussion recently in the context of CLÁR and RAPID programmes. Obviously the RAPID programme is not currently in operation, but one contributor, who may have been from the Western Development Commission, was talking about the approach within RAPID to community needs assessments. There were people who, through the RAPID programme, were in a position to draw together the community and plan strategically with the community. This was in the context of communities making applications for funding for different capital projects and projects of different kinds. The point was made, and it was a good one, that sometimes requests for funding are not coherent and are not based on a thought-through plan of what a community needs. In my own community in Togher, for example, there would have been, as part of the RAPID process, a substantial number of meetings on a community needs plan. That was at least 15 if not 20 years ago.

Currently there is not any such approach, at least in urban areas. Maybe there is something through CLÁR. There is not an infrastructure support or anything like that from the Department to facilitate that kind of planning. It is not necessarily a significant budgetary ask but I would like the Minister to consider it.

I would like to clarify something regarding a question I had last Tuesday. I had to return to Cork unexpectedly and Deputy Paul Donnelly took the question on my behalf. It relates to library funding. The response the Minister gave is that there is maximum funding of €3 million. It was unclear to me if that is the entire pot of funding for capital. The answer also suggested that the maximum value of the project would be €500,000. Can you clarify what precisely is available for individual library capital projects?