Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There is an investment of €44 million in community services programmes in 2018 to support more than 400 organisations. The Department also provides a lot of funding to the libraries programme and I know the Deputy is a supporter of libraries. I want to see libraries being used as community hubs to make sure that people will be able to use them across the country and that is what the capital programme and the extra funding I have given this year is for.

The community enhancement programme was given an investment of €4 million earlier this year and it has now been given a further €8 million. That is €12.5 million in total. Programmes like the town and village scheme, the CLÁR programme and the local improvement schemes all help to put a bit of life into rural Ireland.

If I was asked which is the best scheme that the Department has introduced, I would answer the town and village scheme. It takes public realms and makes towns and villages nice places to live. It supports community hubs, like food hubs and digital hubs. It also supports people who want to get investment into local areas. I have asked my Department to look at job creation this year within the town and village scheme. The scheme has worked very well. There has been approval for 1,300 projects within the LEADER programme, as we mentioned earlier. I would like to see more projects being approved. I would like to see more drawdown of funding and more schemes being drawn out of the LEADER programme.

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