Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister. I am glad that he referred to the programme for Government. He and I, along with others, were there for every day of the negotiations to form this partnership Government. During those negotiations, I continually stated that the local improvement scheme grant should be reintroduced. What happened, happened. I am not in the business of looking backward; what I am interested in doing is looking forward.

The most important part of the road to a person's property is the part that leads up to it. An individual must use the latter before he or she can get onto any other road. Some people say that the local improvement schemes are not really all that important. They are actually of paramount importance.

My local authority, Kerry County Council, is an organisation that I am proud of and that does great work. The management, in conjunction with the excellent councillors, do great work in our county. However, they need funding. They need a specific local improvement scheme grant like what we had before, whereby every year we were able to do 40, 50 or 60 roads leading up to people's houses. We had at list of approximately 300 or 350 roads and we were able to make good solid progress in respect of that list. We cannot do that now because we are only robbing Peter to pay Paul. As the Minster can see, doing four roads is ridiculous.

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