Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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286. To ask the Minister for Rural and Community Development the reason that rural areas in north County Dublin are excluded from the local improvement scheme. [23571/22]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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As part of Our Rural Future, the Government is committed to ensuring that the Local Improvement Scheme (LIS) is funded into the future. The LIS supports the improvement of rural roads and laneways that are not normally maintained by local authorities. The scheme makes an important contribution to connectivity in rural Ireland.

The scheme was reintroduced in 2017 following a number of years with no dedicated funding. Between 2017 and 2021, my Department allocated €80 million towards improvement works on over 3,000 non-public roads and lanes. These works have benefited over 13,300 landowners and residents in these rural areas.

I was pleased, as part of Budget 2022, to announce an increase in the base funding for LIS from €10.5 million to €11 million this year. I have now announced the details of this year’s scheme, including the details of the individual allocations to each county this year.

Under the scheme, eligible road projects are those that involve the construction or improvement of non-public roads as follows:

- Road projects which provide access to parcels of land of which two or more are owned or occupied by different persons engaged in separate agricultural activities; or

- Road projects which provide access for harvesting purposes (including turf or seaweed) for two or more persons; or

- Road projects which provide access to at least one parcel of land owned or occupied by a person engaged in agricultural activities and which separately provides access for harvesting purposes (including turf or seaweed) for at least one other person.

In addition, works can also be carried out on amenity roads. Amenity roads are non- public roads leading to important community amenities such as graveyards, beaches, piers, mountain access points or other tourist/heritage sites. Such roads may not account for more than 25% of the allocation provided to each Local Authority.

The Local Improvement Scheme is demand-led, is typically over subscribed at local authority level and the available budget is fully utilised each year.

Cork City Council along with Galway City Council and the Dublin local authorities are currently not eligible for funding under the Scheme. That said, each year all aspects of the Scheme, including eligibility are reviewed prior to launch.