Mr. J.P. Mulherin:

An allocation of €1.7 million was approved for Leader projects in Kerry. An additional €400,000 is in the pipeline, which will take the total funding over the €2 million mark. Both Deputies Healy-Rae and Deputy Michael Collins referred to changes in the scheme. There are two separate issues at play here, one being the change in the delivery model that followed on from the Local Government Reform Act 2014, which has seen local community development committees, LCDCs, get involved in delivering the programme. The second factor is the changes we have made in recent months to the administration of the programme. As I said earlier, 31 actions were adopted to effect substantial reform of how the programme is delivered. We expect to see the impact of those actions in the coming months.

The delivery model itself involves local action groups, some of which are based on LCDCs and others on local development companies. In all cases, however, the local development companies in each area are still involved in the actual implementation. When one looks at the data on levels of approval around the country, there is nothing to suggest one model is preferable to the other. The highest number of approvals in the top three counties are where LCDCs are involved. Based on the information we have, both models are performing equally well. If the Deputy would like more information on the 31 actions we are implementing, we are happy to provide it.