Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I want to talk about the Leader programme. As Members will know, the Leader programme is an investment programme which is worth €250 million. The current programme runs from 2014 to 2020. In particular, I want to talk about the removal of €10 million from that programme for this year to be put into the local improvement scheme, LIS. I have no problem with money being put into the local improvement scheme - in fact, it is desperately needed for all the private roads in rural Ireland to be repaired. I remember working in Mayo County Council where the budget was cut over a number a years, by both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, by €100 million. During all that time it was a challenge trying to get money for the local improvement scheme. We had hundreds of roads that desperately needed to be repaired and could not be because the budget was not there.

However, the way that this allocation was made, and its announcement at the National Ploughing Championships, gave the impression that €10 million extra was being given to rural Ireland for the local improvement scheme. What the Minister for Rural and Community Development, Deputy Michael Ring, omitted to tell people was that he was taking this money from the Leader programme's budget for this year and putting it into the LIS. In fact, what he said, when the LIS funding was initially announced at the National Ploughing Championships, was that it was only right and fair that some of the motor tax, excise duty on fuel and local property tax paid by people in rural areas be invested in the repair of shared laneways. However, what he omitted to say was that the true source of the funding was the Leader programme.

The Leader programme is desperately needed across rural Ireland for investment in communities and in the start-up of small businesses to provide employment. It is not going to be done by things being shifted around. On the face of it, one might wonder, if it is not going to be spent here, why not have the flexibility to spend it somewhere else. However, the real problem, as we know, is that Leader has turned into a bureaucratic nightmare. It was taken from the development companies, politicised, and put into the local authorities. The Minister and the Government were told at the time that this was a wrong step by Europe and by the hundreds of people who gathered in community halls right across this country. The programme is desperately needed and must be run efficiently. There is a programme to realise the potential of rural Ireland with about 270 actions.

Forget about giving the illusion of investment in rural Ireland. We need investment in rural Ireland and not just the illusion of it, as in this case and many other cases. I would like the Minister to come to the House to explain why he was not upfront in telling people the source of this money and to give guarantees that the local improvement scheme will be funded properly in the years ahead.