Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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704. To ask the Minister for Rural and Community Development the capital allocation for the rural regeneration and development fund in each of the years 2019 to 2023; the projects this fund will contribute towards; the location of each; and the function, commencement, completion dates and annual costs of each. [37238/18]

Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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The National Development Plan provides for an allocation of €1 billion for the Rural Regeneration and Development Fund to enable towns, villages and outlying rural areas to grow sustainably and support delivery of the strategic objectives of the National Planning Framework. Initial funding of €315 million is being allocated to the Fund over the period 2019 to 2022 on a scaled basis.

On July 4th, I announced a first call for proposals under the Fund and invited submissions under two categories:

Category 1: “Ready-to-Go” proposals, or initial phases of projects which can be commenced in 2019, which have the necessary consents (e.g. planning) in place, are at an advanced stage of design, are in a position to satisfy value-for-money requirements in accordance with the Public Spending Code, and are procurement-ready.

Category 2: Proposals that have clear potential and quantifiable objectives but require further development to enable them to be potentially submitted as Category 1 proposals in subsequent funding calls.

The deadline for the receipt of applications under the first call for proposals is 27 September 2018.

The initial announcement of approved projects will be made in November 2018 following the assessment process, and approved projects will commence in early 2019. A further call for proposals will be announced in mid-2019.

Further details of the Rural Regeneration and Development Fund are available on my Department's website.

Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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705. To ask the Minister for Rural and Community Development if he will adress matters regarding programmes (details supplied); the capital allocation for these projects in each of the years 2019 to 2023; the projects this fund will contribute towards; and the location, function, commencement and completion date and annual costs of each. [37239/18]

Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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One of the National Strategic Outcomes of the National Development Plan 2018-2027 is to bring about strengthened rural economies and communities. To facilitate this, €1bn is committed to a Rural Regeneration and Development Fund between 2018 and 2027 to promote rural renewal. This will enable towns, villages and outlying rural areas to grow sustainably and support delivery of the strategic objectives of the National Planning Framework.

Funding of €315 million is being allocated over the period 2019 to 2022, which will allow both further activity under existing initiatives in this area as well as the introduction of new investment initiatives under the Fund to be supported during this period.

Over the period 2018-2022, capital investment of €706m is proposed by my Department to strengthen rural economies and communities as follows:

Details on the Rural Regeneration and Development Fund are available online at .

There are no specific projects assigned to this Fund in the NDP; instead the Plan makes clear that allocations from the Fund will be made on a competitive bid based approach.

On July 4th, I announced a first call for proposals under the Fund and invited submissions under two categories:

Category 1: “Ready-to-Go” proposals, or initial phases of projects which can be commenced in 2019, which have the necessary consents (e.g. planning) in place, are at an advanced stage of design, are in a position to satisfy value-for-money requirements in accordance with the Public Spending Code, and are procurement-ready.

Category 2: Proposals that have clear potential and quantifiable objectives but require further development to enable them to be potentially submitted as Category 1 proposals in subsequent funding calls.

The deadline for the receipt of applications under the first call for proposals is 27 September 2018.

It is envisaged that an initial announcement of approved projects will be made in November 2018 following the assessment process, and that projects (or project development in the case of Category 2 proposals) will commence in early 2019. It is expected a further call for proposals will be announced in 2019 and that subsequent calls will be announced on an annual basis thereafter.