Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for his question. Given my Department's remit in supporting the economic and social development of rural Ireland and community development throughout the country, many of our existing funding schemes support the response to and the recovery from the pandemic. However, a number of specific targeted measures are aimed at directly supporting the Covid-19 response and recovery in communities right across the country.

Through the Covid-19 stability fund, my Department supported 863 organisations in 2020 and 2021 with total funding of approximately €48.8 million. This funding enables organisations to continue to deliver vital services to the most vulnerable in our communities during the pandemic.

The community enhancement programme provides vital supports to assist local groups to reopen their facilities post Covid-19. The programme provided €4.5 million funding in 2021 for small capital grants for the improvement of facilities and it is planned to run the scheme again in 2022.

We also recently launched a €9 million community activities fund to support community and voluntary groups affected by Covid-19. This fund will help community groups, especially in disadvantaged areas with running costs such as utility and insurance bills, as well as with improvements to the facilities. In order to ensure that funding is targeted to where it is most needed in each local authority area, it will be administered locally by the local community development committees.

My Department's committee services programme supports over 420 community organisations to provide local services through a social enterprise model with a co-funding model of €19,000 paid towards the cost of each agreed full-time equivalent position and €32,000 paid towards the cost of each manager position. The transitional LEADER programme also runs until the end of 2022, with €65 million available to local action groups who deliver the programme and approve projects at local level. Some €20 million of this is funded by the European Union recovery instrument to enable local communities and enterprises to respond and recover from the Covid-19 pandemic. In addition, adjustments to programmes delivered by my Department, such as the town and village renewal and CLÁR programmes, are made where required to further support communities.

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