Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

233. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government if he will provide funding through the SICAP programme or through any other programme under his Department to facilitate the continued operation of the development companies on the non-Gaeltacht islands of Bere, Sherkin, Clare, Inishturk and Inishbofin, which between them were allocated in excess of €460,000 this year through Comhar na nOileán; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42639/14]

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

My Department’s Local and Community Development Programme (LCDP) is the largest social inclusion intervention of its kind in the State. The current Programme officially ended at the end of 2013 having operated for four years with funding of €281m over that period.  It is being implemented on a transitional basis for 2014 with a budget of €47m pending the roll out of the new Social Inclusion and Community Activation Programme (SICAP) in April 2015.

The SICAP is one of my key priorities. The Programme’s target groups are:

- Children and Families from Disadvantaged Areas

- Lone Parents

- New Communities (including Refugees/Asylum Seekers)

- People living in Disadvantaged Communities

- People with Disabilities

- Roma

- The Unemployed (including those not on the Live Register)

- Travellers

- Young Unemployed People from Disadvantaged areas.

In accordance with the Public Spending Code, legal advice, good practice internationally and in order to ensure the optimum delivery of services to clients, the Programme is subject to a public procurement process, which is currently underway.  Stage one (Expression of Interest) has been completed. Stage two (Invitation to Tender), got underway on 20 October and involves the successful applicants from Stage one being invited to apply to one or more Local Community Development Committees, in Local Authority areas, to deliver the programme. Contracts for SICAP will be determined following the outcome of the procurement process.

The procurement process for SICAP is open to Local Development Companies, other not-for-profit community groups, commercial firms and national organisations that can provide the services to be tendered for to deliver the new Programme.

In Stage one, joint applications were encouraged and organisations of varying sizes (for example smaller organisations working in consortia with larger organisations) were invited to submit joint applications.

The LEADER elements of the Rural Development Programme will be available to Island communities in the 2014-2020 period in order to promote social inclusion, poverty reduction and economic development in rural areas. I have identified 28 sub-regional areas for the purpose of the design of LEADER Local Development Strategies (LDS) and while it is not proposed to have a separate LDS for the Islands, any LDS which has an island community as part of its territory will be required to outline specifically the challenges faced by these communities and how it is proposed to address these challenges in the context of the delivery of LEADER.  The process of both LDS and Local Action Group selection will begin in the coming weeks and I encourage the Islands communities outlined in the Question to engage with the process to ensure that their concerns are fully considered in the LDS for their areas.