County towns to benefit from grant scheme

Seven County Galway towns and one village will share €380,000 in funding under the Government’s scheme to ‘renew’ rural Ireland.

But the tiny budget allocation was blasted as ‘throwing a bone’ to country communities in Galway, in the same fortnight billions of Euros of investment was pledged for Dublin.

Small scale projects in Athenry, Rosmuc, Oughterard, Ballinasloe, Gort, Tuam, Portumna and Loughrea will each receive grants of between €20,000 and €85,000.

Three of the projects are for upgrading footpaths, which absorb almost 50% of the Galway allocation.

The announcement by Minister Heather Humphreys was welcomed by Minister of State for Gaeltacht Affairs, Seán Kyne but it came under fire from his Galway West rival, Éamon Ó Cuív, who said the investment was far too small to make a real impact.

The full list of the projects for Galway towns and villages to benefit in the renewal scheme include: €70,000 for Athenry footpaths; €42,000 for Rosmuc footpaths; €20,000 for the development of a walking and bike trail in Oughterard; €63,000 for footpaths in Ballinasloe; €50,000 for footpaths, landscaping and a playground in Gort; €85,000 for the renovations to Tuam’s historic mill wheel; €25,000 for upgrading amenities in Portumna Forest Park; and €25,000 “to develop a report to guide plans for the future of Loughrea”.

Deputy Ó Cuív said all of the recipients of money will be pleased to be included but he said the ‘bigger picture’ was that rural Ireland is being ignored, while massive sums of State money is being pumped into Dublin.

“Everything is micro when it comes to rural Ireland and everything is macro when it comes to Dublin. Rural Ireland is given the crumbs from the rich man’s table,” said the Fianna Fáil opposition spokesperson on regional development, rural affairs and the Gaeltacht.

He said the allocation made to rural towns and villages amounted to less than €10 million, which would only “scratch the surface” of what is required.

“They don’t seem to get it into their heads that rural Ireland needs investment equivalent to what Dublin is getting,” he added.

Deputy Ó Cuív said Government just announced €200 million for housing for mostly Dublin and cities. It announced further investment in Metro North and the underground DART, which amounts to billions of euro. A further €900 million was pledged this week to pipe water from the midlands to Dublin and funding has been committed for three new hospitals in Dublin.

“Dublin needs all of those things, but what the Government doesn’t seem to realise is that rural Ireland needs similar levels of investment, spread out over the country. A grant of €380,000 for each county, which is still only €9 million, is way off the billions that is being invested in projects in Dublin. There seems to be no scale when it comes to investment in rural Ireland and yet the money in Dublin runs to billions. The disparity is ridiculous,” said Deputy Ó Cuív.

He pointed said it was farcical that the grants were announced in November, six weeks before the year-end. “Heather Humphrey’s department is awash with money. She has only spent 40% of capital allocations by the end of October. Why isn’t it being spent,” he asked.

Minister Kyne said this year’s allocation was welcome, and there was a pledge for further investment to continue the pilot scheme next year.

The Fine Gael TD said: “The €380,000 funding for Galway, which is being administered by Galway County Council, is part of the national €10 million ‘Town and Village Renewal Scheme’. The Scheme aims to fund projects which increase the attractiveness of towns and villages as local commercial and social centres while enhancing infrastructure and amenities for residents, businesses and visitors.

“With Budget 2017, Minister Humphreys secured a trebling of the allocation bringing to €30 million the funding that will be available for similar projects next year which will build on the important projects being funded this year.”