Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

For the third time, €44 million has been made available for next year to pay for existing projects and for a new transitional programme. In a number of weeks, I will be issuing a new transitional programme, following consultation with the stakeholders. The local development companies do really good work on the ground. I engage with them in my other Department, the Department of Social Protection. They roll out a number of projects on its behalf.

I am going to carry out a full review of the success of the current LEADER programme. LEADER staff are not the only people delivering on the ground because we are delivering through the local authorities, CLÁR, the town and village renewal scheme, the outdoor recreation infrastructure scheme and the rural regeneration scheme. Therefore, there are a number of players. I accept that they do great work and I want to engage with them but I want to review the scheme. It is timely that we look at what they achieved in the last programme and determine how we can improve on it in the next one.

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