Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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Question 405: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government when the projects previously grant approved through RAPID funding will be allowed to proceed; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34646/11]

Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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I assume the question refers to the decision to approve disbursements from the Dormant Accounts Fund for a once-off measure up to the value of €1.25m for the five new provincial towns incorporated under RAPID. These are Ballina, Dungarvan, Enniscorthy, Mullingar and Rathkeale.

Under Government Accounting procedures, disbursements on Dormant Accounts measures are paid in the first instance "up front" from the Department's Vote in the same way as with any other spending programme. We have to source funding for dormant accounts programmes from our Exchequer allocation in the annual Revised Estimates Volume. The Dormant Accounts Capital budget for this Department for 2011 is fully committed to existing projects and our priority in the light of that allocation must be to ensure that there is sufficient funding available to meet existing legal contractual commitments. Accordingly, the matter of progressing the projects in the new RAPID towns to contract stage will be kept under active review in the light of availability of funding / levels of expenditure across the Department's Vote during 2011 and into 2012.