Select Committee on Environment: Local authorities are not taking up available funding to provide central heating in council housing and to instal collection centres for recyclables, Minister for the Environment Dick Roche told an Oireachtas committee meeting yesterday.
He said it was "frustrating" and "simply not good enough" that funds were being provided to local authorities for recycling infrastructure, yet they were not being installed. Mr Roche said his own town, Bray, still had not installed such a facility.
He was outlining his department's Estimates for 2005 to the Select Committee on Environment and Local Government.
Some €43.8 million allocated for housing went unspent last year, while €31.8 million more could have been spent on water services, Mr Roche said. He added he could not "go knocking on the door" of the Minister for Finance looking for more money when local authorities were not availing of current funding.
Mr Roche said he was surprised to find that a number of local authorities had not sought funding from a scheme for the installation of central heating in local authority dwellings.
"It's pretty shocking when you find that local authorities don't even bother asking," he said.
Noel Ahern, Minister of State with responsibility for housing, said 45,000 local authority dwellings did not have central heating when the scheme started last year. Some 3,000 received central heating last year, while 7,500 units are expected to receive it this year.
