Frank Feighan (Sligo-Leitrim, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, for coming to Sligo last Friday. His trip was very informative and welcome. I also thank him for taking this Topical Issue on the community involvement scheme. The House, especially those of us who were members of our local authorities before being Members of the Oireachtas, will be aware that the CIS was fully embraced and taken up by many people living in rural communities. The scheme involves residents living around a section of public road putting forward that road under the scheme and paying a contribution of 10% towards the cost of resurfacing the road. Usually, the road selected sees a limited amount of public traffic and is not what the local authority calls "of strategic importance". In other words, it is not a road between two villages or towns. Nevertheless it is a public road and not a private road.

Over the past few years, funding under the CIS has been reduced by the Department of Transport. Many members of local authorities are disappointed by this trend and believe we should review the allocations under the 2024 roads funding to local authorities, which is due out in the next five or six weeks. We are all aware of the success of the local improvement scheme, which has received significant funding for private lanes. Funding has come from the Department of the Minister, Heather Humphreys, but we need more money from the Department of Transport. Last year, €30 million went to local authorities under the LIS, and now the scheme is fully subscribed, with a long waiting list. It is now time a similar funding budget was put forward for the CIS. Under the LIS we have done our bit, but we need to start a fund for some of these very important rural initiatives.

The CIS deals with public roads, roads programmes and schemes that are unable to proceed because of the demand to deal with other public roads with greater volumes of traffic.

In Sligo, Leitrim, Roscommon, Donegal and many other counties, engineers acknowledge the success of the scheme in completing so many rural roads. Now, with a lot of money in the country, it is time funding was restored to allow the CIS to be rolled out across local authorities for the benefit of many people living in rural communities on small public roads.

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