Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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35. To ask the Minister for Rural and Community Development the status of the LEADER programme and the transitional arrangements from this programme cycle to the next. [34172/20]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The current 2014-2020 LEADER programme will come to an end this year. Under the seven-year programme, €168.7 million was allocated to the Local Action Groups (LAGs) who deliver the programme at local level, for project approvals up to 31st December 2020.

As of 1st November, 3,530 projects with a value of over €139 million have been approved for LEADER funding by the LAGs. A further 341 projects requesting over €21 million in funding are at various stages in the approval process.

As the Deputy may be aware, due to delays at EU level, the next EU LEADER programme will not commence until 2022 at the earliest. The Programme for Government includes a commitment to prioritise a State-led programme to bridge the gap between the current LEADER programme and the next EU programme. The objective of this Transitional Programme is to allow locally-led rural development projects to continue to be delivered using the LEADER model until the new EU programme commences.

An extra €4 million has been provided for LEADER in Budget 2021, to bring the total allocation for next year to €44 million. I can confirm that this allocation will be used to fund a combination of existing projects as they come to completion, as well as for new projects to be approved under the Transitional Programme and to support the administration costs of Local Action Groups in closing out the existing programme and delivering the Transitional Programme.

I hope to be in a position shortly to announce the details of the Transitional LEADER Programme which will come into effect in 2021.