Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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515. To ask the Minister for Rural and Community Development the number of rural roads that have received funding under the local improvement scheme in each of the years 2016, 2017 and to date in 2018, by local authority in tabular form. [53928/18]

Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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The Local Improvement Scheme, or LIS, is a programme for improvement works on small private or non-public roads in rural areas. The scheme is now funded by my Department and is administered through the Local Authorities.

As the Deputy may be aware, there was no dedicated funding for this scheme for a number of years due to constraints on public expenditure. However, I was very conscious of the underlying demand for the scheme in rural areas throughout the country.

I reintroduced the LIS in September 2017 and allocated a total of €17.4 million to Local Authorities for LIS roads last year.

In February of this year, I allocated €10.8 million to Local Authorities across the country under the 2018 LIS scheme, given the continuing level of demand for this funding in rural communities across Ireland. I also asked the Local Authorities to prepare a secondary list of roads which they could complete if further funding became available for the scheme during the year.

Following on from this, on 26^th October last, I announced a further round of almost €10 million in funding to the Local Authorities. The allocations on a county-by-county basis for both of these rounds of funding are available on my Department's website.

The table below outlines the number of roads completed under LIS in 2017 and 2018 to date, in tabular form.