Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy mentioned the Dublin issue in terms of poverty. As I said, in 2017 we allocated €2.5 million for inner city Dublin, €3.5 million for 2018 and €6.5 million for 2019, in addition to the funding we allocated for South Dublin County Council.

The Deputy is right about his own constituency. In the Sligo-Leitrim area more than €433,000 was allocated. When I amalgamated the community enhancement programme and the RAPID scheme, there was €2 million in each of them, making a total of €4 million. The Deputy is correct. From savings in my Department last year I made a political decision. I felt this scheme was a good one. It was targeting the areas it should target. As I said to Deputy Curran earlier, I have to monitor the scheme to make sure this funding is going to the most needy and disadvantaged areas. So far, I am happy that is the case but I will be monitoring it to identify the areas that got the actual funding. It is important that if this fund is allocated for a specific purpose it is spent on a specific purpose. I am giving the local community development committees, LCDCs, the opportunity to do that. I know they have done a good job this year but I will have to monitor that. For this year, however, we have €4 million in a programme. If I can get some savings later in the year, I will look at that again.

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