Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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575. To ask the Minister for Rural and Community Development the breakdown between funds expended on preparatory support costs, administration costs and project costs on the LEADER programme in each year of the Rural Development Programme 2014-2020 and to date in 2018 per each local action group, in tabular form. [39426/18]

Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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LEADER is a multi-annual programme for the period 2014-2020 and has a total budget of €250 million over that period. Tables 1-3 below detail the expenditure incurred in each of the years 2015 to 2017, and to date in 2018 per each Local Action Group (LAG) area. The expenditure relates to:

- the costs incurred in each LAG area in relation to development of the Local Development Strategies (Preparatory Support),

- the administration costs of the LAGs and the costs of their engagement with communities to generate projects; and,

- expenditure incurred on projects.

The level of project activity under the LEADER programme has increased significantly in recent months, with 1,318 projects being approved for funding of over €40 million. A further 331 project applications with a combined value of in excess of €21 million are at various stages in the approval process.

Project payments have increased significantly in recent months as approved works are completed and claims for payment are submitted by the project promoters. Over €6 million of project expenditure has been incurred in 2018 compared with just €600,000 in 2017.

The progress now being made by the Local Action Groups in approving projects will result in a continued increase in project approvals and payments under the LEADER programme for the remainder of the year. This progress has been assisted by improvements made by my Department in the last year to the applications and approvals process, in consultation with the LAGs.

Table 1: LEADER 2014-2020 Preparatory Support expenditure by year as of 24^thSeptember 2018

Table 2: LEADER 2014-2020 Administration Expenditure by year as of 24^thSeptember 2018

Table 3: LEADER 2014-2020 Project Expenditure by year as of 24^thSeptember 2018