Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Mooney for his remarks. Of course I acknowledge the importance of the renovation and restoration of the cottage as a heritage and tourism development. I understand entirely the interest and local pride that the communities in the county of Senators Mooney and Comiskey have in respect of the matter. That is one of the reasons Fáilte Ireland, which is an agency of my Department, made an allocation and contribution to the work that needs to be done on the cottage.I acknowledge the work done and planned by the local authority with regard to the car park.

In the context of the road itself and the timing of future allocations, in the coming weeks we will determine and confirm the allocation for each county for local and regional roads. This funding will be available to Leitrim County Council. As regards the cost of the road and as already stated, I made an additional €500,000 available to Leitrim County Council earlier this year - I made similar allocations available to every other local authority throughout the country - and I made clear to it that this funding could be spent in any way it saw fit. A decision was obviously made to invest the money elsewhere. I will continue to recognise the discretion the council has with regard to the funding we make available to it for next year. I hope progress can be made on the road but I am not currently in a position to state whether further funding will be available this year for this or other projects. The investment needed to complete what is required to allow people access to the cottage in order that they might see it will, for the time being, be a matter for the local authority to determine, either out of its own resources or out of the additional funding I will make available to it, as a matter of course, for local and regional roads in the coming weeks.