Sharp reverse in money to fix Laois lanes

Laois County Council has €860,000 to households and farmers to fix up broken and bumpy laneways this year which is a significant reduction on recent years.

The 2025 Local Improvement Scheme (LIS) allocation is €470,536 for the 88 private rural laneways to farmland and homes approved and waiting for works.

The Community Involvement Scheme (CIS) is even less, at €390,000. There are 39 schemes on that waiting list which covers small public roads like back lanes and dead ends.

The money will only stretch to three or four, according to the council's Director of Services for roads, Simon Walton.

"Some of them (CIS) are quite expensive. The reality is there will be three or four completed this year. The list will be issued to members in the next four weeks," he said.

The private LIS scheme was put on ice for years by the Government after the economic crash, but in recent years the council sought and won a lot of money to catch up on nearly 10 years of applications. Since then more have piled up.

"We completed 61 in the county between 2022 and 2024, spending €2.9million. That is extraordinary compared to any other county. 

“There has been a huge raft of applications since and we are finalising their eligibility now. It is important to say where they are on the list, so we will arrange that in the coming weeks," Mr Walton said.

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The grants pay for most of the cost of road repair, with the homeowners adding the rest. Last year the Department of Rural and Community Development changed the LIS qualification from the need of two homes and two herd numbers (farmers access) down to one herd number.  

"That brought a huge increase in applications, the word is out there," Mr Walton said.

"A lot of our focus has been on who was eligible and who was not, that's coming to a conclusion now and we'll issue the first round of offers in coming weeks, ranked in priority order," he said.

Most of the lanes in both of the schemes are on the western side of Laois, as Mountmellick Borris-in-Ossory Muncipal District covers the largest area. It holds 58 of the 88 LIS applications and 34 of the 39 CIS applications. 

There are seven LIS applications and four CIS in Portlaoise MD. Portarlington Graiguecullen MD has 23 LIS and one CIS waiting for work.

Three councillors from the Municipal District of Mountmellick Borris-in-Ossory want updates for their consitutuents waiting years for the money.

See how to apply for the LIS and CIS schemes here.

Cllr Conor Bergin had asked the council to write to every one to update them on where they are on the waiting list, which is being dealth with from the oldest applications up.

"There are a lot waiting a long time to be done. There are CIS applications in for the past four or five years. I'm getting contacted regularly on this," he said.

Cllr John King suggests writing to the applicants every year with an update, while Cllr James Kelly said their area does not get the funding needed to deal with the amount of applications sitting waiting.

"The queue is getting longer," he said.

In previous years, a second tranche of grant money came in halfway through the year, after the council asked for more.