Johnny Guirke (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I wish to take two minutes and then give the Minister two minutes to respond, after which I will come back in for the final minute.

In these tough times, when Covid is affecting every person and every area of the country and when all areas are dependent on a little help from the Department and the Government, may I tell the Minister about my constituency of Meath West? The Department recently announced funding. I will give her a few examples of how it distributed that funding. The educational disadvantage funding for Louth and Meath, with a population of 340,000, amounted to €386,000; the adjacent constituency, with a population of 137,000, received €520,000. Under outdoor recreational infrastructure funding, Meath West received €29,500; the constituency beside us received €214,000. Under community enhancement funding, Meath West received €44,700; the neighbouring constituency received €112,000. Under CLÁR, Meath West received €80,600 and the neighbouring constituency received €630,000. Worst of all, under town and village funding, out of €15.4 million, all Meath West was entitled to was €100,000. That is 15 times the funding the adjacent constituency received. I spoke to the Minister before this funding was announced and told her of a project in my area, where there is a great deal of antisocial behaviour. It submitted an application for funding. Needless to say, the Minister did not fund it.

I have three questions for the Minister. Is it acceptable or fair that a constituency of a similar size to Meath West receives 15 times more funding? What criteria does her Department use when assessing applications for funding? Does she think that if funding cannot be distributed fairly across the board, there should be another way of doing it, or is it a case of who you know rather than the people who are most deserving?

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