Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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394. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will address a matter regarding the case of a person (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27822/20]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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The Fisheries Local Action Group Scheme is a community-led local development initiative for the socio-economic development of coastal communities and forms part of my Department's European Maritime and Fisheries Fund Programme 2014-20.  There are seven Fisheries Local Action Groups, each responsible for a specific coastal region, and each has published a Local Development Strategy for its region to guide its distribution of its respective share of the overall €12 million budget allocated within the EMFF Programme for the FLAG Scheme.

As a community-led local developmet initiative, each of the seven FLAGs is responsible for selecting projects for funding within its region and I have no function in those decisions.  In 2020, each of the seven FLAGs assessed applications against standard criteria and selected projects that it considered best contributed to the achievement of the respective FLAG's strategy.  In addition to the standard assessment criteria, having regard to the impacts in 2020 of Covid-19 on both coastal communities and FLAG applicants, I understand that projects were prioritied by the FLAG's against additional criteria, including in particular their capacity to complete the project in 2020.  Before letters of offer were issued to any applicant, they had to provide assurances that they could complete the project within the tight timescales proposed.  Neverthless, I understand that it is normal practice for each FLAG to sympathetically consider any requests by applicants for an extension and the applicant concerned should discuss this with the local BIM FLAG officer.