Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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969. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the infrastructure projects being built or commissioned by his Department that are currently late in their delivery; and the infrastructure projects currently over budget; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34098/25]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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My Department does not, in general, directly build or commission infrastructure projects. The capital allocations made to my Department support a range of schemes that focus on the delivery of community based projects, with the relevant projects mainly delivered by local authorities. Most schemes have grant levels below €500,000 and for these the terms and conditions usually set out indicative completion dates of around 18-24 months. The Department works with local authorities to monitor delivery and shows flexibility where it is needed to ensure projects are delivered for communities. It is a matter for the local authorities to manage the contracts and specific delivery timeframes, with the focus of the Department on ensuring up to date information is provided and that we effectively manage the multi-annual allocations for each scheme. For these schemes, funding approvals are generally granted in the form of maximum agreed grant amounts, with any cost overruns beyond the final agreed amount either met by the applicant or through agreed changes to the project that reduce costs without significantly impacting the project. In certain circumstances, for example the Community Recognition Fund, where an overall funding envelope is available to a local authority for a number of projects, a given authority may balance that allocation across its projects to ensure optimum delivery, without exceeding its overall allocation.

Grant funding of greater than €500,000 is available through the Department’s Rural Regeneration and Development Fund (RRDF), Libraries Development Programme and the Community Centre Investment Fund - New Builds. For the RRDF, it is typically expected that approved projects would have a lifecycle of up to 5 years from funding application, through the design and planning process and to construction completion. There are 15 RRDF construction projects that are currently being delivered where initial funding approval was received more than five years ago. It should be noted that in some instances, these projects encompass phased delivery, and so they may be open and operational but not yet fully completed. In addition, two projects under the Libraries Capital Programme have also been delayed as they form part of a larger mix-use projects. A list of these 17 projects is provided in Table 1.