Mr. J.P. Mulherin:

On reaching those furthest behind, the sustainable, inclusive and empowered community strategy overseen by the Department of Rural and Community Development has that as a particular focus. Only in the past month, the Department has been working with stakeholders to develop a guide to inclusive community engagement in planning and decision-making. It has been working with organisations to identify best practice in terms of engaging with marginalised communities. A number of pilot projects are ongoing in four local authority areas dealing with particular issues around Travellers, older people and LGBTQ+ people. What we learn from that will feed back into the guidance that is provided.

More specifically, the Deputy will be aware of programmes such as the social inclusion and community activation programme, SICAP, which is Ireland's primary social inclusion funding intervention. It is delivered through local development companies and the local community development committees. It has two particular targets. One is to support communities and disadvantaged communities in particular, and the other is to support individuals who have been identified as being in need of opportunities to improve their life chances. SICAP is working with disadvantaged children and families and disadvantaged young people. There are 13 different target groups and €46 million was invested in the programme last year. In excess of 30,000 people and almost 3,000 communities were supported through that. There are other smaller programmes with which the Deputy will be familiar such as the community development pilot programme, which is targeted very specifically at seven marginalised communities throughout the country, again to try to learn best practice with the intention of rolling it out to other areas. Different initiatives are ongoing.