Manus Boyle (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We can all stand over our own county, so I will claim mine as the best.

We have our problems in Donegal, for example, housing, mica, health and fishing. One that I want to address today is the local improvement scheme, LIS. When the local improvement announcements come out, councillors are inundated with people ringing them and wanting their lane done, this and that done, drainage and the whole lot. I started out in the local elections in March and when I finished on 9 June, I had 75 requests for people in the Donegal municipal district, MD, looking to get their lanes done, and that is just in the Donegal MD. On the first day I met the senior roads engineer, I went in all happy, going into the council and asking how many roads I would get done. He turned around and said, “Manus, you might be lucky to get one”. There is €12 million in the budget for the whole of Ireland. We could spend the €12 million in the Donegal area because the roads are that bad.

I met a woman in early June and went back to visit her this week. She is afraid. She is 80 years of age and she cannot walk down the road because the road is so bad. I ask the Department of Rural and Community Development to do something with the LIS. The scheme as it is currently set up is not working. It is taking too long. One man told me today that he has been 12 years on the waiting list. Some kind of a change needs to be made. I ask the Minister to come and see if we can try to change it, and get more funding for rural areas.