Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

In the past week, €70 million in rural regeneration funding has been announced. Rural regeneration funds are a lifeline for rural communities throughout our country. I fully congratulate any town or village that has been successful in getting funds.

The Tánaiste launched this scheme in 2018. Can he explain why, in 2019, 2020 and 2021, when both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have headed the Government, Cork South-West got zero funds, even though it had shovel-ready projects?

One is the Schull Harbour development project, which would have created up to 50 jobs in the Beara Peninsula. Another is the Dursey cable car project in Castletownbere, which would bring massive tourism to the peninsula and to west Cork. The third project in west Cork for which funding was refused involved doing up the surrounds of Bandon town, which has been decimated by flooding and sewerage works.

The rural regeneration and development fund is, in my view, a slush fund for towns and villages in constituencies that have Ministers in government. Can the Tánaiste answer why Cork South-West, where there are shovel-ready projects, continues to be overlooked for rural regeneration while other towns and villages, which do not have projects that are shovel-ready, get funding?

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