Ms Sheenagh Rooney:

I might start with the queries raised by Senator Marshall on our trend in seeing applications come back again. I will highlight that in the call we just announced, we had applications from people who were unsuccessful in the first round and were successful in the second round. That was good for us to see because we put a lot of time and effort into providing meaningful feedback to people following the first call. We were able to clearly point out the type of projects that were successful and the ones that were unsuccessful, and show the reasons for that.

This leads to the comment made about gaps.

In the first call we did not see real regeneration ambition but we certainly saw more of it in the second call and we can build on that. The majority of projects in the second call involved the repurposing of existing infrastructure in towns and villages or plans for regeneration. That regeneration has a number of elements. We were very pleased to see that a number of projects that were unsuccessful on the first call were successful on the second call because of the feedback from the Department. The feedback that we gave and the changes we made to the marking schedule in the second call meant that more regeneration projects came through. We have just finished the second call and intend to go out with another public session in January, when we will engage with all of the stakeholders on what has been learned from the last call and will try to identify any gaps that exist. One of the positive aspects of the fund is that it supports a wide variety of projects which means that communities are able to think about the best solution for them. We are not being prescriptive in that regard, which is good. We have information on the broad range of projects that have been funded and would be happy to forward that to the committee.

In response to Deputy Smyth's comment regarding disjointed funding, our Department has tried to present a coherent package of funding. When we are communicating with stakeholders, preparing application forms and going through the processes, we try to show that the rural regeneration and development fund is for transformational projects. It is for regeneration projects that require more money than other types of projects. The town and village renewal scheme is obviously for smaller-scale projects that yet still make a difference. That is complemented by funding available through CLÁR and the outdoor recreation infrastructure scheme. We will continue to monitor the coherence of those funding streams to ensure that they all make sense and are directed towards their different objectives. It is fair to say that the landscape is fairly busy but it is delivering different objectives for communities. We always welcome feedback on our various schemes. One of the most important aspects of the fund is the additionality element. The fund is there to be additional and to make projects happen that would not otherwise get off the ground. The feedback we have received is that the projects simply would not have happened without this funding source and that the rural fund is meeting that particular need.

A question was asked about local authorities and the statistics show that about 70% of the applications were from local authorities on all calls to date.