Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As I understand it, the applications are received by the Department of Rural and Community Development, which has a scoring system. It is against this scoring system that projects are assessed and a decision is made on which ones to fund. I cannot answer as to why no projects in the Deputy's constituency have been funded. There must be a reason and those who have put forward those projects and are promoting them are entitled to know why they did not receive funding. I certainly will speak to the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, about this and ask that she create a system whereby, at least, people who do not get funding understand why and can perhaps apply again and get funding the next time. That is what we do with sports capital funding. Sometime people do not get funding one year but they might get it the next year or the year after. That is probably the best approach in this case too.

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