€70m cash injection to improve infrastructure in depopulated regions

THE most depopulated regions in the country have received a €70 million cash injection over the past two years to improve their infrastructure, it emerged yesterday.

The money has given isolated communities many services like public water and sewerage schemes as well as new piers for islands.

The CLÁR scheme, introduced by Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs Minister Éamon Ó Cuiv two years ago, set out to help rural areas that would otherwise have been at the bottom of the infrastructural investment list.