Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. The local area improvement scheme was introduced last year by the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government. To be fair, the Department operates many such schemes in conjunction with local authorities. I am not sure how much was made available for this scheme, but I think it was €7 million. It equipped the local authority with small budgets so that it could engage in a co-operative fashion with local community groups in an effort to make the environment cleaner and improve public areas. The scheme proved successful in Clare because it enabled Clare County Council to enter into partnership arrangements with community groups that improved public areas in a way that the council would not necessarily have had the resources to do. The budget that Clare County Council got would have worked if it had been spent on one project. Instead, it decided to split up the funding and distributed grants, as far as I am aware, to community groups. As a result, the council got a much greater bang for its buck. The scheme has been great.

I do not believe there has been an announcement of a follow-on scheme for this year. Given the fact that the scheme was so successful last year, I urge the Minister to announce a similar scheme for this year.