Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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201. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the funding allocated to emigrants and the diaspora for 2016. [40958/15]

Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s Emigrant Support Programme (ESP), provides funding to non-profit organisations and projects to support Irish communities overseas and to facilitate the development of more strategic links between Ireland and the global Irish.

Over €135 million has been provided to organisations dealing with Irish emigrants since the establishment of the Emigrant Support Programme in 2004.

A total of €11.6 million has been allocated to the Emigrant Support Programme, in the Department of Foreign Affairs for 2016. It is anticipated that the grant round will open early in 2016 with decisions on funding for 2016 taken by July next year (the ESP funding year runs from July – June). Additional funding of €1 million has been allocated to the Department of the Taoiseach for diaspora related expenditure in 2016.

Details of all organisations who have previously received funding under the Emigrant Support Programme are available on my Department’s website at .

Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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202. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the total funding allocated to organisations (details supplied) for 2016. [40959/15]

Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s Emigrant Support Programme (ESP), provides funding to non-profit organisations and projects to support Irish communities overseas and to facilitate the development of more strategic links between Ireland and the global Irish.

A total of €11.595 million has been allocated to the Emigrant Support Programme for 2016. The funding cycle for the Programme runs from July – June annually and decisions on 2016 funding will only be made mid-year next year.

However, for the Deputy’s information, I am setting out as follows the funding that was awarded to these organisations in 2015:

Please note also that, in line with a commitment outlined in Global Irish: Ireland’s Diaspora Policy,Irish in Britain was the first organisation to receive multi-annual funding from the Emigrant Support Programme this year. In addition to their 2015 grant as outlined above, they have also been provided with indicative funding for the following two years based on a Service Level Agreement.