Brendan Griffin (Kerry South, Fine Gael)
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Question 214: To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources the grants and amounts paid by him to community and voluntary groups in Galway city and county to date in 2011; and if he will list the chairperson, secretary and treasurer of each group that was a beneficiary of same. [38336/11]

Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)
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I can provide the Deputy with information in relation to the Warmer Homes and eInclusion Schemes. The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) administers Better Energy: Warmer Homes on behalf of my Department, which is delivered through a range of Community Based Organisations (CBOs), augmented by a panel of private contractors. The energy poverty strand of Better Energy aims to provide energy efficiency improvements to low-income homes unable to afford the cost of implementing such measures. This is enabling over 20,000 low-income homes to benefit from energy efficiency retrofit measures this year.

Grant support is provided to a CBO for delivery of energy efficiency retrofits to eligible fuel poor homes and is directly linked to delivery by a CBO in any given year. The following table outlines the drawdown to date for each CBO in Galway city and county.

* Meitheal Forbartha na Gaeltachta (Connemara) liquidated since September 2011

Separately, my Department also provides grant assistance to community and voluntary sector organisations throughout Ireland to support projects providing basic Internet use training. The most recent scheme (BenefIT 3) awarded grants amounting to €1.6m to date in 2011. The training will be available at several locations including county Galway, between November 2011 and June 2012. Training is being provided through 19 Grantees involving over 200 organisations (National and local) in a wide variety of venues spanning approximately 700 locations.

While it is not possible at this stage to ascertain the precise amount of grant funds that pertain to Galway it is my understanding that 12 of the grantee organisations, listed in the following table, will be providing training throughout the County of Galway to approximately 1,560 people – this represents almost 4% of the total number of beneficiaries under the scheme. Further details on this scheme including the specific sum of grants awarded to organisations are available on my Department's website at www.eInclusion.ie. Organisations providing training under the (BenefIT 3) in County of Galway