Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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I will be brief. The last issue regarding planning is something about which we need to talk to the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government. There is no question about it. Something has to be done and the national plan will have to be looked at again.

The reason the previous Minister dropped the funding for local improvement scheme, LIS, roads is because there was no money in the country but when local authorities got their discretionary grant they could put a percentage of it into LIS roads. The local authorities themselves have washed their hands of the LIS roads. They have discretionary funding from their own resources and when we did research on local authorities all over the country, we found they put very little money into them. I suggest the committee brings the Minister, Deputy Ross, in here. I have very little money in the CLÁR programme. I am prepared to put some money in but I will not do the job of the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, which has a bigger budget than I have. I have only €5 million nationally. If the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport and the local authorities put some funding in place, I will try to find some funding from CLÁR to match it.