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

The Government is fully aware of the challenges facing community and voluntary organisations now and I was delighted to launch the €15 million community centres investment fund earlier this year. The huge interest in this fund shows how important community centres are for communities throughout Ireland. Under the 2022 fund, applications were invited under three categories, with funding of up to €300,000 available. On 12 October, I announced over €12.5 million in funding for 580 successful category 1 applicants. On 8 December, I was delighted to announce a further €33 million in funding for 278 successful categories 2 and 3 applicants. Details of the successful applicants are available on my Department's website, www.gov.ie/drcd.

It is clear that this is a much-needed and appreciated fund for communities nationwide. I was determined to make the process of applying for this funding as straightforward as possible so as not to burden groups run on a voluntary basis. As a result, detailed information is not available for each of the specific headings referenced by the Deputy. Following on from the huge interest in the 2022 fund, I was delighted to secure €20 million in budget 2023 to run the community centre investment fund again in 2023. It is intended that the 2023 fund will be targeted towards new-build community centres, as well as upgrades and improvements to existing centres. I expect to be in a position to launch the 2023 fund in quarter 1 of 2023.

The Deputy will appreciate that many of these applications came from community centres and communities and volunteers on the ground. These were assessed by Pobal. It was not information that we looked for, but we had to ensure applicant groups were constituted properly etc. There was a need to be speedy to get this out to the groups as fast as possible.

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