John McGahon (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I would like to discuss the rural regeneration applications that go through the Department of Rural and Community Development under the Minister, Deputy Humphreys. Millions of euro have been pumped into communities right around this country. In my own county of Louth, €30 million from that Department has gone into rural regeneration projects. The issue I have with the scheme is that it is down to the local authorities to pick a village and put the application in. It is done through the local authority. The local authority may have a little too much power in that instance because it can pick its top two or three towns or its top four villages and specifically direct funding towards them. While those villages need it and I welcome it, we should expand the scheme and open it up a bit more so that Tidy Towns initiatives or community groups can apply for that funding. That would open up the process and make it fairer. It would allow projects to be judged on their merits in a local community in a local area rather than perhaps a local authority putting only one project forward that it knows will get funding. Why not have an open competition, let different villages compete against each other and let the process be that bit fairer? There is nothing wrong with opening it up. Where you have really good community groups, really good Tidy Towns organisations and really good business investment districts, they should be able to put applications like that in for schemes. It should not be dominated by a local authority which can decide what villages are going in, and in what years, at its discretion.