Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am not quenching any candle, but we need to put on the lights as happened during rural electrification many years ago by the late Canon Hayes. There has been a cut of €156 million to Leader funding. County Tipperary has lost €20 million in Leader funding. What about other spending on rural environments, such as group water schemes? In 2011, the Department funded all local authorities to administer the rural water programme to the tune of €70 million. By 2016 that amount had dropped to €20.9 million, which is an astonishing gap of almost €50 million and the Minister needs to explain that.

During the same period, in Tipperary alone there was a reduction in payments under the rural water programme of €1.95 million in 2011 to €718,000. We have been devastated. The Minister told me to light a candle rather than curse the dark. The Leader programme has been destroyed. It was held up as a model all over Europe, but the former Minister, Phil Hogan, destroyed us, and was supported by the Government. It is only now being restarted. Nothing has happened in the two years that have elapsed. Expressions of interest for the Leader scheme close tomorrow in Tipperary. That is the current situation. Not a shilling has been provided.

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