Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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175. To ask the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the progress with regard to the core principles of the Government's confidence and supply arrangement to increase funding for Leader, to strengthen the social inclusion and community activation programme, to develop new community development schemes for rural areas and to increase investment in the Irish language, respectively. [30768/17]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Ireland’s LEADER programme 2014-2020 has a total budget of €250 million over the lifetime of the programme. €220 million of this funding has been allocated to the 28 LEADER sub-regional areas in Ireland and will be delivered by the LEADER Local ActionGroups (LAGs) selected in each respective area. The remaining €30 million in LEADER funding will be managed at a national level for targeted investment initiatives in areas such as co-operation projects between LAGs, and support for artisan food producers.

The Programme for a Partnership Government noted that the Government "will make available more competitive capital funding to allow LEADER groups bid for additional resources for projects that best support rural economic development”. The Government is committed to this action and to ensuring that there is appropriate funding available to the LEADER programme over its lifetime. Funding requirements are reviewed and agreed on a year-by-year basis as part of the annual Estimates process and a sum of €40 million has been provided for the programme in my Department’s 2017 Estimate. I am satisfied that this is sufficient to meet the anticipated demand in 2017.

A total additional allocation of €2.25 million was provided in Budget 2017 for the Irish Language, Gaeltacht and Islands Programme. This additional funding will enable my Department to allocate extra resources to the implementation of the 20-Year Strategy for the Irish Language, the language planning process, Gaeltacht support schemes such as the Irish Language Colleges, and Gaeltacht community groups funded by Údarás na Gaeltachta.

Furthermore with regard to Údarás na Gaeltachta, an additional €1 million in capital funding was secured for the agency as part of my Department’s Revised Estimate in 2016, and this has been retained in 2017, giving Údarás na Gaeltachta a new capital baseline of €6.687 million. An additional once-off allocation of €2.4m was also secured for Údarás for capital projects in 2016.

The Social Inclusion and Community Activation Programme (SICAP) referred to in the Deputy's question currently comes under the remit of the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government. Any queries in relation to this scheme would be best addressed to the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government.