Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Question 231: To ask the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs further to his recent announcement on the extension of the CLÁR areas in County Mayo, if extra funding will be provided for the extra areas in CLÁR; and if so, the amount of extra funding which will be provided. [18609/06]

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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Funding of €22.95m has been provided in my Department's Vote for the CLÁR Programme in 2006. This represents an increase of over 70% on the 2005 expenditure and I am confident that this will allow for the expansion of the Programme into the new areas as recently announced. The measures that are currently open to the extended CLÁR areas are as follows:

—LIS Roads

—Flashing Amber Safety Lights at Schools

—Small Public Water & Sewerage Schemes

—Group Water Schemes

—Group Sewerage Schemes

—CLÁR Water Conservation Measure

—Village and Countryside Enhancement Scheme

—Bi-lingual Signage Scheme

—Gaeltacht Grants Top-up

—Single to Three phase Electricity Conversion

—Community Initiatives of a Capital Nature

—Coastal and Harbour Development.

Further announcements will be made in due course on the expansion of other measures.

The Deputy should note, however, that no specific allocations are made to the CLÁR areas of counties from each year's financial provision for the Programme. Some measures are demand-led while, in other cases, the projects, by and large, are selected or recommended by the relevant Departments, State agencies, Leader groups and/or local authorities, in consultation with my Department. Therefore, investment in the extended CLÁR areas will, in the main, be determined by the level of applications received under the various measures.