Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

A report from earlier this year from the NESC highlighted the LEADER programme as a crucial programme for addressing and developing the rural economy. In fact, in the Taoiseach's remarks yesterday, he made a similar point and he was right. The difficulty, though, is that the LEADER programme has been hollowed out in recent years. In the 2007 to 2013 programme, the allocation to LEADER represented €60 million per year. Between 2014 and 2020, it was nearly halved to €35 million per year. The proposed funding for the next round will see, in real terms, a reduction of somewhere between 6% and 10%. Does the Taoiseach acknowledge and accept that the LEADER programme is crucially important for regional and rural development? There is not a community that has failed to benefit from it in recent decades. The €100 million that has been allocated to the programme needs to be €300 million in order for LEADER projects to deliver the type of investment that those communities need. I ask the Taoiseach to ensure that that money is provided to the programme.

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