Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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284. To ask the Minister for Rural and Community Development if projects approved under category one and category two of the second round of funding under the rural regeneration and development fund were required to have planning permission in place before funding could be approved; the specific applications for which funding was approved in which planning permission was in place; if funding was approved for projects without planning permission being in place; if so, the projects for same; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11224/19]

Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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The first call for applications for the Rural Regeneration and Development Fund closed at the end of September.  €1 billion is committed to the Fund over a 10 year period to support rural economic development and help build strong communities. €315m is allocated to the Fund for 2019-2022.

There were 280 applications received to the first call under the Fund.126 applications related to Category 1, "shovel ready" projects while 154 related to Category 2 projects - those which needed development funding to become potential Category 1 applications in future calls for applications.

In November 2018, I announced the first set of 18 successful Category 1 projects, providing €24.4m in funding for projects with an overall value of €34.6m. 

In February 2019, I announced another 20 successful Category 1 projects and 46 Category 2 projects which will benefit from support from the Fund of €62m, with a total project value of €83m. 

For the first call to the Fund only Category 1 projects that had the relevant permissions in place were approved for funding.  The Department is currently finalising a standard process of due diligence with successful applicants. Part of the process will be to confirm that projects are indeed ready to proceed with all consents in place as applicants have stated. 

Category 2 proposals are projects that need further development to enable them to be potentially submitted as Category 1 proposals in future calls to the Fund and were not required to shovel-ready at that point - with consents in place.

Table 1 sets out the list of successful Category 1 projects to the first call under the Fund. 

Table 2 sets out the list of successful Category 2 projects. 

Table 1.  List of Successful Category 1 Projects

Table 2. List of Successful Category 2 Projects