Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

To be fair to Deputy Michael Collins, he did acknowledge that there was no scheme for many years and that it is up and running now. A total of €17.5 million was spent on the scheme last year. There was no dedicated LIS scheme in recent years. Councils receive money from rates and other contributions. I agree with Deputy Michael Collins that there are many roads in rural areas that we need to address. I would like to see local authorities and perhaps the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport putting funding into the scheme. There are many roads with problems because we did not have a scheme for many years and if everybody put a bit into the pot we would get more roads done. A total of 1,100 roads have been completed in 12 months and if we could get a bit of extra funding from the local authorities and the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport perhaps we could get more roads done. Perhaps elected representatives could speak to county councillors to suggest that councils should put some money out of their own resources into the LIS. The Acting Chairman, Deputy Eugene Murphy, is a rural Deputy himself and he is aware that people make a contribution to the scheme in addition to paying their taxes and water charges. The State also makes a contribution. I would like to see local authorities making a contribution but instead some local authorities charge us for the work and we could get more roads done if they did not charge us for their staff time.

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