Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I propose to take Questions Nos. 9 and 224 together.

I am leading a Department whose mission is to help build vibrant and sustainable communities across the country in both rural and urban areas. To do this requires a mix of policy initiatives and actions to improve economic development and to address gaps in meeting the social needs in these areas.

Many of these initiatives form part of the Government's published action plan for rural development and framework policy for local and community development which include a range of measures which will contribute significantly to addressing isolation and social inclusion in communities.

The Department is committed to the successful delivery of a number of programmes which will greatly benefit rural and urban communities. These include the new five-year social inclusion and community activation programme, SICAP, which runs from 2018 to 2022 and is our country’s primary social inclusion intervention. It is a €190 million national programme that is delivered locally to help those in the greatest need. The new community enhancement programme, which I launched last month, will provide capital grants worth €4.5 million to projects which target disadvantage. The new version of the seniors alert scheme came into effect on 1 November 2017 and has seen a surge in demand. The Leader element of the rural development programme 2014-2020 will provide €250 million in financial resources to address the challenges facing rural areas over the course of the programme period, particularly under the themes of economic development and social inclusion.

I launched CLÁR, a targeted investment programme for rural areas, in March 2018. The programme provides funding for small-scale infrastructural projects in disadvantaged rural areas that have experienced significant levels of depopulation. The town and village renewal scheme is another initiative under the Government’s Action Plan for Rural Development and is part of a package of national and local support measures to rejuvenate rural towns and villages throughout Ireland. Funding of €15 million has been earmarked for the 2018 scheme and it is hoped that up to 200 projects will be approved for funding this year. All this funding will bring benefits to rural and urban communities by addressing isolation.

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