Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is a fantastic place. I think the number of allocations made during the first round represented a great achievement on the part of the Department. They are now progressing. The Senator asked about giving guidance to applicants. We have done that. To be fair to my officials and staff, they went around the country. They had meetings. They brought in the local authorities and the LEADER companies. They brought in anybody who had made an application. They went through what they are expecting from the next round. They went through where applicants went wrong in the particular round they were in. I have to say my staff put a lot of work into getting people to participate. They did too good of a job. We now have applications worth a record €169 million. We do not have that kind of funding to allocate. A really competitive process is under way now. The evaluation committee, which evaluates and looks at the applications, will put forward the projects to me. There is going to be real competition this time. There has been a big improvement in the standard of applications this time. To be fair, it was a new programme the last time.

The Senator asked whether we are continuing with the funding. Yes, we are. People said it would not happen. People said it was only a scam, in the context of the 2040 project, but that is not true. One round is already over. Eighty-four projects were approved in the first round. Thirty-eight categories were approved in category 2. To respond to another question he asked, some €1 billion is being provided over ten years. People can come in under category 2 to draw down funding to make their projects category 1 projects. That was another omission in the past, when groups did not have the money to put an application together. Now we are providing the funding for that. We will be opening that again shortly. We opened the first round and we allocated the funding. We opened the second round in August and we will announce the successful applications in the next few weeks. We will open it again early in the new year. The programme will continue for ten years. The money is there. It has been committed by the Government. There will be a real demand for that funding over the next few years because the quality of applications will get better, particularly now that category 2 is in place. We did not have that in the first round because it was a new scheme. A number of groups got money the last time to make their applications fall under category 1. They are working. They are coming in with fantastic applications. There are fantastic applications around the country. We have heard about digital hubs and food hubs.

I will respond to Senator Hopkins in a moment. Fantastic projects are already taking place around the country. Regardless of who is here in ten years' time, he or she will be able to identify what was done in every county under the rural regeneration scheme. Senator Coffey spoke about rural development. There is no doubt that the schemes which have been introduced by the Department have given a new lease of life to many communities. We would like to have more money and more funding. As a Department, we have done very well. We have been in operation for two years. I think we have achieved a great deal in the last two years. I thank the Senator for his comments. Senator Hopkins-----