Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)
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209. To ask the Minister for Rural and Community Development his plans to review the need for a 20% drawdown of town and village scheme moneys before the end of 2017 due to delays with tenders; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [49824/17]

Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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On 4th October, I approved funding of €21.6 million for 281 projects across rural Ireland under the Town and Village Renewal scheme. 

Letters of Offer were issued to the Local Authorities on 12th October, indicating that the first tranche of funding for projects would be paid this year once 20% of the total project costs had been incurred.

A number of Local Authorities have contacted my Department in recent weeks, indicating that they may have difficulty in reaching the 20% expenditure level this year due to the timing of the announcement of the successful projects. 

It was originally envisaged that the projects would be announced in July.  However, the establishment of the new Department, which amongst other considerations required new legislation to be introduced in the Oireachtas, meant that it was not possible to meet the original timeline. 

The Town and Village Renewal projects will be delivered over a period of 15 months and the commitments which I made to the 281 successful projects remain in place.  I have asked my officials to re-profile the funding draw-down based on the information being received from Local Authorities.