Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The LEADER Programme is one of the key interventions of Our Rural Future, the Government’s Policy for rural development.

I was delighted to welcome the recent announcement that the European Commission has confirmed their approval of Ireland’s CAP Strategic Plan for 2023-2027, which includes the LEADER programme. This approval is a key step in the delivery of the next LEADER programme.

A number of further steps will now be completed by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine in advance of bringing the CAP Plan to Government for final approval in the coming weeks.

My Department’s focus now is to finalise the design of the new LEADER programme in conjunction with key stakeholders

As part of the new CAP Strategic Plan, the Government has committed significant funding of €180m to LEADER for 2023-2027. I can confirm that all of this funding will be allocated to the Local Action Groups for the implementation of LEADER.

In addition, transitional funding of €70m was provided for the LEADER Programme for 2021 and 2022 to ensure that there was no gap in funding prior to the commencement of the 2023-2027 programme.

The process to select the Local Action Groups to implement the new programme which will be open, transparent and competitive will be conducted over two stages. I hope to confirm full details of this process shortly.

The first stage will be an Expression of Interest by eligible groups followed by a more detailed stage which will see them develop their LEADER strategies. All groups that are successful in Stage 1 will be provided with funding to assist with the costs associated with developing a Local Development Strategy in Stage 2 of the process. A fund of €2 million has been ring-fenced for this purpose.

It is important that the key public and private stakeholders in communities across Ireland come together in partnership to deliver a LEADER programme that will build on the fantastic success of the programme over the last 30 years and to ensure that LEADER continues to play a central role in supporting rural communities into the future.

Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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117. To ask the Minister for Rural and Community Development the supports that she is providing to ensure that access to connected hubs is available to all; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [44788/22]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Our Rural Future, Ireland’s Rural Development Policy, was published in March 2021. The policy recognises the opportunity for rural rejuvenation that remote working presents and commits to establishing a comprehensive and integrated national network of 400 remote working hubs by 2025.

Accordingly, last year I launched the National Hub Network together with its online booking platform, connectedhubs.ie. It is a single network that provides users with information on the location of, and facilities available at, remote working hubs throughout Ireland.

There are currently 281 enterprise and co-working facilities across the country on-boarded to the connectedhubs.ie platform. This number is growing all the time meaning that we are well on track to meet our target of 400 remote working hubs nationwide by 2025.

Today there are Connected Hubs available in every county and more are coming into the Network on a weekly basis. My Department continues to provide significant funding for the establishment and development of hubs through a range of schemes.

In terms of support for individuals to use Connected Hubs, in June I launched the Connected Hubs Voucher Scheme to provide 10,000 hot-desk sessions for free over the lifetime of the Scheme. Phase 1 of the Scheme concluded in August, and the second phase of the scheme will open shortly.

I am confident that the continued development of Connected Hubs can make a very real contribution to the delivery of the ambition for rural Ireland set out inOur Rural Future.