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

I am sure it takes a total mental adjustment for the Minister to move from the billions in the Department of Social Protection. When she looks at this Supplementary Estimate, she might think there are a whole lot of figures missing because we are dealing with €2 million here and €1 million there, or €10 million and €16 million, whereas the other Supplementary Estimate runs into hundreds of millions and billions. It must be stressed that for a Department with a very small budget, it is crucially - equally - important. I think the total spend is €384 million. In the greater scheme of things, compared to the Minister's other Department, it is a very small sum. Going 10% up on that is a huge boon, whereas 10% down would be a huge loss. It is very sensitive to very small money. What I think could also be said is that very small extra money makes a disproportionately big difference.

I did not see any mention of the community services programme. Has it come in just bang on the budget saving, and how are the numbers on that? That scheme should be aggressively progressed. It provides a massive range of services where they would not be fully economical but there is a reasonable income. Some are more economical than others. The tourism ones tend to be quite economic but they still would not work in a lot of the more rural areas without the support of the scheme. There are other ones where there is a much lower level of income but they all serve huge purposes.

The Minister has mentioned that she is investing hugely in community centres, and we all agree with that. Unless each one of these large community centres has adequate staffing under the community services programme, we are not using them to their potential. They should be open in the morning from 8 o'clock, and they should be closed between 9 o'clock and 11 o'clock at night. That requires staff, however. Why are people on jobseekers' allowance when they could be providing fantastic services through the day, and putting a comprehensive programme in place?

My second point just shows how the need arises. I got a phone call last week telling me that the only shop on the island of Inishbofin has been closed. The community has taken responsibility for the shop because it is just not economical to run a shop commercially on a small island, particularly in the winter. I understand they will be looking to extend the community services programme to cover this. They already have the structure and programme there but it will probably take a few extra full-time equivalents, or FTEs as they are called. Plugging that kind of gap is positive, and crosses the Minister's responsibilities in both of her Departments. We need to be speedy about something like that.

On the larger community centres, the applications are in. Could the Minister indicate when that is going to be rolled out?

On LEADER, the Minister said there is €2 million more this year. I take it that comes out of the whole maw of the money from 2022 to 2027. Does that mean that when the new LEADER gets up and going, they are going to be €2 million shorter on the capital end? They are still running this interim programme. It is very hard to see with LEADER whether it is administration or capital because I think it is all classified as capital, even the administration costs. The Minister might clarify that.

When I went up to do something in my office, I was listening to my good colleague, the Leas-Chathaoirleach of the coiste, about the local improvement scheme, LIS. He obviously has not read all of the Supplementary Estimates because the Department of Transport is providing €50 million extra for active travel, bringing the total amount for active travel up to €347 million. My only argument about LIS is that we still do not have enough, and I think the Minister knows that. It is a disgrace that the Department of Transport does not. In the previous iteration, when the Department of Rural and Community Development funded the LIS, the arrangement in the CLÁR areas was that we would meet it euro for euro. If it did not put the money in, we would not.

It would be right for me once again to say - I know the Minister cannot utterly control this - that it is incumbent on the Department of Transport to ensure everybody has a road to their house. The one change I would like to see to that scheme is where we would have clusters of houses on roads that always existed but there might not be two herd owners anymore on them because of consolidation in farming, and so on, in rural areas. While I accept that in places like Monaghan and Meath it is more a farmers' scheme, in the west of Ireland the construction has changed. It is time we dealt with that issue and said that if there are two more houses on a road, it can be considered for the scheme. It would then be up to the local authority to prioritise it by genuine need. I ask the Minister to do that.

Can the Minister confirm whether the ring-fenced fund for the islands will be there next year? That was very useful, and there has been some absolutely unbelievable work out of it.

Finally, what one will find when one does LIS roads is that a lot of these are where people choose to walk as well, whether they are tourists, particularly in my constituency, or the locals for recreation. They are really 30 km/h speed roads, regardless of whether one wants that to be the case, because they are not good enough to do anything further. It is safe to walk on them, and so on. The idea that they are not a facility for active travel would be to totally misunderstand them. I would love the Minister to see what is probably the most spectacular road she has funded this year. It is in Inis Meáin, and they call it Bóthar an Dúna because it goes past Dún Chonchúir, the prehistoric fort. There was an absolutely miraculous job done on it. It goes from near the church on the island right to the back of the island, to the uninhabited part. It gets access to all the farmland - that is true - but it also has access for tourists. It is a part of the island that very few tourists actually see. The Minister should go down and open it, as a flagship project she has done.

I would like to say one thing about every euro the Minister spent on LIS. It is so bad in Galway that when the Minister opened a scheme in 2021, or whenever it was opened last, they got so many applications they have taken no more applications since. It is that bad. I would say I am not the only one who is facing that.