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

Since 2017, we have put €170 into the local improvement scheme and as 5,000 roads have been completed during that time, there has been a lot of progress. I have written to the Minister for Transport on numerous occasions and every time I stand up in the Dáil I ask my colleagues to raise this with the Minister for Transport because these are roads, after all. I do not know if I will make much progress over the next couple of days but the Minister was not too keen to give me the money. Well, I am not saying that he was not too keen but I did not see it yet. There is a big role here for the Department of Transport and I have said that all along, because I can tell the Deputy that had it matched the funding we as a small Department with a relatively small budget have put into the LIS, the long list of lanes that are waiting would have been cleared. I did ask many times but the funding was not forthcoming. It is very important and I know the value of the LIS, as do any of the rural TDs. It is so important. We changed the criteria recently where it is not as tight, we have relaxed it a bit. This will allow more lanes to go onto the LIS but it will be a challenge and we will have to get more money to sort out the local improvement scheme. God knows, they really do a great job, when we see what can be done.

As for the local authorities taking over these lanes when they are completed and when there are a number of houses, you often will be referred to the community scheme and that is okay also. I do not fund it but in helping farmers, the local improvement scheme has been extremely successful and it should be further invested in.

On Comhar na nOileán, it has been appointed as the local action group for the LEADER programme on the Galway islands and it is an implementing partner with the relevant local action groups, LAGs, with the islands off the coast of counties Donegal and Cork. Comhar na nOileán also called for the function to remain in the Department of Rural and Community Development, believe it or not - it wants to stay with us. Comhar na nOileán had its annual general meeting and stated it wanted to make it very clear it wants to stay with this Department and does not want to move to any other Department so I suppose that is an indication of some of the success we have had. There are a lot of challenges when one lives on an island. I visited them with Deputy Ó Cuív and have been to them on many occasions. The Department has strong island funding that I believe can be further increased to deal with the issues on the islands. The main issues are the piers and money has been set aside that is ring-fenced for islands through the LIS programme and that will have to be built on as well.