Clare allocated ‘crumbs from the cabinet table’

SUCCESSIVE Fianna-Fáil-led governments have been accused of allocating Clare “crumbs from the cabinet table” for capital spending in sport, education and non-national roads.
The charge was levelled by Fine Gael Deputy Joe Carey as a new study revealed Clare received less than the national average in government grants for the majority of two specific periods from 2002 to 2004 inclusive, and 2005 to 2007.
However, the claim was rejected by Fianna Fáil Deputy Timmy Dooley, who argued the statistics presented a “distorted” picture of the total government investment in the county over this period.
Huge disparities in funding emerged between Clare and other counties who had the advantage of having a senior ministry, according to research conducted by Dr Jane Suiter for a PhD thesis undertaken at Trinity College.
Between 2002 and 2004, Clare received €39 per head of population for capital sports and community projects, which was less than the national average of €48 and almost half of the allocation of €74 per head in Waterford.
Kerry South, the home of the then Sports minister John O’Donoghue, got over double the Clare allocation with €85 per head.
The funding gap continued from 2005 to 2007 when Clare got €49 per head of population for capital sports projects, less than the national average of €54 per head and less than North Tipperary with €61 per head.
Clare also fared poorly when it came to the allocation for non-national roads, receiving €118,620 per kilometre of non-national road between 2002 and 2004. This was substantially less than the national average of €158,469 and Waterford’s allocation of a massive €188,364. Waterford was the home of the then environment minister Martin Cullen.
While overall funding for non-national roads increased from 2005 to 2007 giving Clare €147,000 per kilometre, it was still less than the national average of €190,000 and Waterford’s allocation of €217,000 per kilometre.
The only exception was the primary school grants allocation where Clare got €112 per primary school child between 2002 and 2004, above the national average of €100 per child and almost double Waterford’s allocation of €65 per child.
However, from 2005 to 2007, Clare’s share per primary school child dropped below the national average of €138 per head to €123, which was substantially less than Waterford’s allocation of €196.
The former economics editor of The Irish Times, Dr Suiter, who is now a researcher at the Geary Institute in UCD, said the figures show there is very little evidence that funds were targeted across the country in a fair and equitable manner or in line with policy.
Dr Suiter pointed out that merely electing a cabinet minister wasn’t enough to ensure that money flowed to a particular constituency; that minister had to be in control of the purse strings in a particular department to accrue substantial benefits for their home patch.
Deputy Carey claimed the figures show Clare has suffered from “political neglect” by successive Fianna Fáil-led governments because the county has fallen way behind other counties in terms of its share of sports, roads and primary education funding.
Deputy Pat Breen is not surprised with the figures, which he claimed show Clare has not received its fair share of the national cake. He felt the findings would exert more pressure on Defence Minister Tony Killeen to deliver for the county in the last years of the Government.
Calling for an overhaul of the political system to make Government ministers more accountable, he stressed that counties should get a fair capital allocation to meet their needs.
He said it is obvious that roads in Clare have suffered because the county council was not allocated the resources it required to repair the substantial damage caused by recent flooding and frost in the county.
However, Deputy Dooley rejected the charge of “political neglect” in Clare by Fianna Fáil, stating the study presented figures in a very crude and distorted fashion as they didn’t take into account the number of applications made for sports grants or whether they met all the relevant criteria.
He claimed the provision of two new national schools in Deputy Carey’s home village of Clarecastle and neighbouring Ballyea showed allocations were based on need, not on political motivation.
He pointed out the road figures didn’t take into account the huge Government spending on national and secondary routes, such as the Ennis and Newmarket bypass, minor roads funded from the Clár programme and the huge road network in Clare.
Defence Minister Tony Killeen noted that when a sports minister was in a particular constituency, it had been suggested that large sports projects were brought forward and a larger number of applications than normal were made because of greater expectations that they would be approved.
Rejecting Deputy Carey’s charge, the Defence Minister said that in the case of the national primary routes, it was a considerable achievement to secure the construction of the Ennis and Newmarket-on-Fergus bypass before the completion of the main Dublin to Limerick motorway and a variety of other capital projects in Clare.
Deputy Killeen noted that prior to the unprecedented frost and flood damage in Clare, the local county council had the road network in reasonably good condition. He added that one of the criteria used in the case of non-national roads funding was the current state of county’s roads.
He noted that in terms of analysing capital allocations for individual counties, it would be helpful to know the level of applications and the approval rate for each one.