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

This year there was a significant increase in the town and village renewal scheme with €22 million allocated to it. With regard to the Deputy's point on the community activities fund being oversubscribed we do not know this yet. It may be happening at a local level. Over the coming month or two we will get feedback from the local authorities, which will tell us how many applications they have had. I suspect it will be oversubscribed. Later in the year we will look at the community enhancement programme, which is a similarly run programme through the local community development centres. There will be opportunities for similar type applications under this front later in the year. We monitor the situation closely in terms of demand and take-up of grants. I acknowledge the work of volunteer centres throughout the country. We often talk about the community enhancement programme and the town and village renewal scheme. We also support the volunteer centres and we now have one in every county. I acknowledge their work particularly during Covid.

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