Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)

LEADER funding has been cut in 2024 and 2025 and now it has been cut in the budget for next year. I would like to know what the rationale is for that and I would like a breakdown of what will be affected by that cut. The cut in LEADER funding for next year is in the order of €10 million.

That has to be considered in the broader reconfiguration of CAP happening at European level and the Government's failure - this is bigger than the Department only as it is being led by the Department of agriculture - to come to terms with that and to exert influence at European level to ensure that rural development funding and, indeed, other measures are protected within that reconfiguration.

This is also part of a direction of travel here in Ireland where there has been a divestment in rural communities by successive Governments from 2014 on, with changes to the LEADER programme and, as my colleague Deputy Bennett said, year-on-year cuts to funding.

It can be dressed up as being about transitional periods and an envelope of funding that lasts but in real terms, we are seeing cuts year on year.

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