Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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418. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the funding provided by the Forest Service to a non-governmental organisation (details supplied) since 1996; the criteria which has been used to qualify this funding; if there was an opportunity for other forest NGOs to apply for similar funding; if there was a tender process; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40373/17]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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Responsibility for forestry policy was transferred to the Department of Agriculture from 1^stJanuary 2004 and since that date has provided funding to the named organisation of €162,500.

Funding was provided under the former grant-in-aid process until 2014 when the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform issued Circular 13/2014 ‘Management of and Accountability for Grants from Exchequer Funds’ under which all funding in the grant and grant-in-aid categories were reclassifed as grants only.  This circular defines grants as ‘a financial provision, originating in a Vote, for a particular activity or service administered or undertaken by an outside body, including agencies, companies, committees, advisory groups, charities or individuals’.

There is no tendering process for such grants and forestry-related NGOs may submit a proposal for funding of relevant projects. Grants are awarded, within the budget available, on the basis of the individual merits of each proposal as presented.