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

It is important to say that when LEADER was introduced, many years ago, it was the only show in town for funding projects in rural Ireland. That is no longer no case. We have a whole swathe of funding streams to support rural communities. In my Department, we have the rural regeneration and development fund, the town and village renewal scheme and the outdoor recreation infrastructure scheme. Many of those schemes offer higher grant aid than that available under LEADER. We also have specific funding streams to support social enterprises. Only yesterday, I was pleased to announce funding for more than 200 social enterprise projects. The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment runs the regional enterprise development fund. The Department of the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Deputy Eamon Ryan, has a range of schemes to support climate action. LEADER complements all those programmes but it would be wrong to try to portray that it was the only support for rural communities, which the Deputy will acknowledge.

The €70 million transition funding will be over two years. A number of allocations have been made from it, but an average of 33% has been allocated to date out of that €70 million.

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