Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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238. To ask the Minister for Rural and Community Development the reason it is his plan to pre-pay local authorities for work on LIS roads, as per Parliamentary Question No. 163 of 12 October 2017; if the approval of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform has been given for this decision; his views on whether local authorities may not live up to commitments they may give regarding the completion of works, particularly in view of the fact that a considerable amount of the funding given to local authorities in December has not yet been spent or accounted for; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [44459/17]

Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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In the past, Local Improvement Schemes were mainly run towards the end of the year when the main public roads programmes were winding down. The LIS roads were completed through a concentrated effort over a relatively short period of time.

In September of this year, I re-launched the Local Improvement Scheme, with an allocation of €10 million for 2017. Funding was allocated to Local Authorities on the basis of listings of projects which they had indicated could be completed by the end of the year. The amount requested by Local Authorities greatly exceeded the budget available for the scheme this year and it is a matter for the Local Authorities to prioritise the specific roads on which works will be carried out before the end of the year within the allocation assigned to them.

Payments will be made to Local Authorities only when they have certified that at least 50% of the works had been completed and that the works will be fully completed before the end of the year. The payment arrangements take account of the fact that Local Authorities would not have been in a positon to factor the scheme in to their cash-flow requirements at the start of the year.

All expenditure by my Department to date has been fully sanctioned by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and all future payments will similarly require sanction and will be in line with public financial procedures.

Expenditure under all of my Department's rural support schemes is being monitored on an on-going basis and inspections of both projects and associated administrative files will be carried out as necessary to verify satisfactory completion of the LIS and other schemes.