Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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1106. To ask the Minister for Rural and Community Development the number of projects approved to date by each local action group, LAG, under the LEADER programme 2014-2020; the number of approved projects that have received project funding; and the number that have not in tabular form. [3863/20]

Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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LEADER is a multi-annual programme which has a total budget of €250 million over the period to 2020.  €225 million of this funding has been allocated as core funding to each of the individual Local Action Groups (LAGs) who deliver LEADER. The remaining €25 million is available for schemes to be delivered at a national level and is allocated as projects are approved.

Table 1 provides a breakdown of the number of core projects approved by each Local Action Group to date, as well as the number of approved projects which have received at least one payment, and the number of projects where no payment has yet issued.

Funding is drawn down as the projects start to incur expenditure and the project promoter submits claims for payment to the LAGs. The approved works, or phases of works, must be completed by the project promoter prior to any final or phased payments being made.  A project promoter can opt to receive payment in one full final payment or up to five phased payments.

Over 1,000, or 40%, of project promoters have now received a Final Payment in respect of their project.

The level of project activity under the LEADER programme continues to increase and, to date, 2,771 core projects have been approved for funding of over €107 million.  A further 317 project applications, with a value of almost €26 million, are at various stages in the approval process.

In addition to the figures provided in the table, over 100 Food and Co-operation projects have been approved at national level under the thematic schemes referred to above.

Table 1: LEADER core project approvals and payments issued as of 1 March 2020, by LAG