Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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458. To ask the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the specific areas of the electoral divisions in the Kells municipal district that are designated within the CLÁR area. [17959/17]

Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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The CLÁR programme (Ceantair Laga Árd-Riachtanais) was originally launched in October 2001 to provide for targeted investment in disadvantaged rural areas.

The areas originally selected for inclusion in the CLÁR programme were those which suffered the greatest population decline from 1926 to 1996, with the exception of the Cooley Peninsula which was included on the basis of the serious difficulties caused in that area by Foot and Mouth disease. The average population loss in the original CLÁR regions over the period 1926 to 1996 was 50%.

In 2006, an analysis of the 2002 Census data was carried out by the National Institutefor Regional and Spatial Analysis (NIRSA) at Maynooth University and the programme was extended to include areas with an average population loss of 35% between 1926 and 2002.

Table 1 provides details of individual District Electoral Divisions (DEDs) in Co. Meath which are eligible for funding under CLÁR. A map showing the location of these areas in Co. Meath is available on my Department’s website at . On the basis of the criteria set out above, the town of Kells is not an eligible area for CLÁR.

Table 1: County Meath CLÁR DEDs