Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

CLÁR funds, or co-funds with other Departments, State agencies and local authorities, investment in selected priority developments. These investments are made through a series of measures that support physical, economic and social infrastructure such as roads, water and sewerage, village, housing and schools enhancement, health, electricity conversion and sports and community projects. No specific allocations are made to the CLÁR areas of counties from each year's Estimates provision for the programme. Some measures are demand led while in other cases the projects are by and large selected or recommended by the relevant Departments, State agencies, LEADER groups and local authorities in consultation with my Department.

In addition, under the non-national roads measure, allocations from a €6 million co-fund with the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, which I announced in February, were made to each local authority based on the county's percentage of the total CLÁR population. However, as the local authorities select the projects, neither my Department nor the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government has any discretion in the selection of projects save for their being in a CLÁR area and meeting the terms of the measure.

There are 70 district electoral divisions in county Galway which are included in the CLÁR programme. Of these, 43 are in east Galway. Funding for projects in these DEDs under the various measures in the programme totals nearly €1.3 million from 2002 to date in 2005. Commitments entered into for the comparable period and yet to be drawn down amount to more than €580,000. The total spend in east Galway since the inception of the programme is as follows:

As it is not practical to provide all the information here, I am arranging to send the Deputy full details, by DED, of expenditure and commitments made but not yet drawn down in respect of each CLÁR measure.

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