Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, United Left)
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531. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government if his attention has been drawn to the fact that his Department when launching the public area enhancement scheme indicated that works undertaken with funding from the scheme should be additional to work already planned; the level of funding provided by his Department for the scheme in County Sligo; if his attention has been drawn to the fact that the largest allocation of funding in Sligo, a sum of €10,000, has been allocated to remove timber hoarding at a county council site at Connaughton Road, Sligo; if his Department has received any information from the council of the reason it is costing so much to remove the hoarding; if funding from the scheme was intended to be used for such work; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31619/14]

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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Following on from the success of Gathering Ireland in 2013, my Department provided once-off funding to support local authorities’ efforts to prepare and maintain their public areas in an effort to maximise the economic benefits that can flow from increased visitors to their towns, cities and counties. A total of €2.975m was allocated to all city and county councils on a proportional basis based on population.

Local authorities were asked to undertake this work in co-operation with local community efforts, wherever possible. It was made clear that all work undertaken was to be additional to that already planned and that all funding to be provided under the Scheme should be met with 25% matching funding from the local authority. All work is to be completed by the end of September with full drawdown of funds required by the end of October 2014 . In the event that projects carried out do not meet the requirements of the scheme, they will not be eligible for receiving grant funding under the scheme.

Sligo County Council received an allocation of €70,000 under the Scheme. The projects which were approved for funding are outlined in the table below.