Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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1504. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the progress made to date with the roll out of the Leader programme in County Galway; the process that is to be followed to select entities to deliver the programme in the county; if it is intended to cover all of rural County Galway under the programme; when it is hoped that a successful bidder will be selected and a contract signed for the Leader programme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [32052/15]

Ann Phelan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Labour)
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As the Deputy will be aware, Ireland is conducting a two stage process for the selection of Local Development Strategies to support the delivery of the LEADER elements of the Rural Development Programme 2014-2020. Stage one, the Expression of Interest (EOI) stage, is complete. Two entities in Galway submitted qualifying EOIs, namely Forum Connemara covering the Connemara area of the county and Galway Local Community Development Committee covering the whole county.

My Department has facilitated a number of meetings with both entities with a view to bringing all interested parties together to develop one coherent Local Development Strategy for Galway. To date no agreement has been reached between the parties and both entities are preparing separate strategies for their selected areas.

All applicants have been given a minimum of 6 months for the preparation of Local Development Strategies. I expect that not all areas will require the full 6 months and I am hopeful that many areas will have their strategies submitted, assessed and approved and be in a position to begin implementing their strategies by Autumn 2015.

In areas where a single strategy is submitted, the Evaluation Committee will review and evaluate these strategies with a view to ensuring that the strategies meet the required standard. In areas where entities do not come to an agreement and multiple strategies are submitted, it will be a matter for the Independent Evaluation Committee to make a decision on which Local Development Strategy best meets the needs of the community. In this situation, the Evaluation Committee will not make a decision on the successful strategy until all strategies for that sub-regional area have been submitted for assessment.