Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We accept that the resources in this area were reduced, as they were in every other area. No area was singled out. Resources across the board were reduced. The aim of the Minister, the Department and myself is to try to drive that spend up. There are issues with regard to this money being spent in certain areas. Some local authorities excel in that regard and some do not. We are trying to get to the bottom of the reasons for that because it is not acceptable. Not all the reasons are to do with the local authority; it is a combination of reasons. We have put in place the expert panel to review this matter and I have no doubt we will then have action to try to drive the spend. In the context of concerns about whether the money going in the right direction, the Deputies should look at the trend. We increased the capital spend in 2015 by 22%. Next year it will be increased by 69%. We would not be doing that if we did not believe it was the right thing to do, nor would we be increasing the spend if we thought we could not spend it. In October last year the spend was approximately 27% or 30%, which is the same figure for this year. There will be a big push over the next few weeks - I know there are only seven or eight weeks left in the year - to get this money spent, and we intend to do that because Deputy Wallace is correct in stating that it should be spent.

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