Councillors call for changes to Local Improvement Scheme
A number of Local Improvement Scheme (LIS) applications have been deemed ineligible due to changes made recently to the eligibility criteria of the scheme, a meeting of Cork County Council Northern Committee heard this week.
A motion put forward by Cllr William O’Leary requested that the council write to the Minister for Transport and the Minister for Rural and Community Development, to urgently increase funding in Cork County and widen the eligibility scope for the LIS.
Scheme criteria has been revised in recent years by the Department of Rural and Community Development with the additional requirement for applicants to submit documentation to verify their engagement in agricultural activities through herd/ flock numbers and maps associated with their basic payment scheme from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.
“Last year there was two schemes in the Mallow Kanturk MD, and two schemes in the Fermoy MD, we have to put pressure on the department to get those numbers up. It is restrictive, we see the criteria that they are now asking for in terms of land holdings, two different land holdings, herd numbers and so on,” Cllr O’Leary said.
“There’s plenty of these areas in Cork County and definitely in the Fermoy MD there’s roads that will not be funded under current RI programmes and there’s people there without the necessary land holdings, so there is no prospect of these areas being done in the near future or ever. The scope of the scheme does need to be widened,” the Rathcormac-based councillor said.
‘DEFINITELY A MESS’
He went on to note that a large number of applications will now be deemed invalid due to the change in eligibility criteria, highlighting that people may have been on waiting lists and have now been bumped to the back of the queue in some areas.
“The whole LIS structure and system at the moment is definitely up in the air and definitely a mess. I fully understand that you are at the whims of the Department in this regard, but I welcome that we do write to the Department.
“I think the whole area of the LIS needs a full review and a full overhaul to make it more accessible. We need to increase funding and increase access to the scheme,” Cllr O’Leary added.
Cllr O’Flynn seconded the motion saying ‘ we are lucky in one way’ as the council spent about ten years without any scheme. He went on to commend Mayo TD Michael Ring for fighting hard to the scheme to be introduced.
“We have a very good engineer in Fermoy, Brendan O’Gorman, and we always take it up. We’re very successful in Fermoy, we don’t believe in sending back money, and if there’s any of the schemes that don’t take it up, we have waiting lists in Fermoy,” Cllr O’Flynn said.
CRITICISED
Speaking on the new eligibility criteria for the LIS, Cllr Kay Dawson criticised the introduction of requiring herd numbers.
“Not everybody in rural Ireland is a farmer and has a herd number so we need to support those people that are living on these roads. They are just as important as if they were a farmer. I fully support the scheme but it is the stipulations inside it that make it very challenging for us to deliver the service out to the people living on these roads,” she said.
Cllr Deirdre O’Brien also fully supported the motion to write to the ministers in the hopes of making changes and securing funding.
“Local improvement schemes provide lifelines for people. I think everybody who lives on these private roads and cul de sacs has a right to apply for these and has a right to be included,” Cllr O’Brien said.
Director of Services, Roads and Transportation Padraig Barrett, confirmed to the council that a number of ‘aged’ applications have effectively been made ineligible due to the changes and that the council are still in receipt of a number of ineligible applications.
“We’re not in a position to change, that it is a matter for the Department of Rural and Community Development,” he told the council.
“The objective of the LIS is to fund the construction and improvement of non-public, private roads. Cork County Council administers the scheme on behalf of the Department of Rural and Community Development, from whom funding is allocated, and who set out the eligbility criteria for the LIS scheme,” the response explained.