Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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184. To ask the Minister for Rural and Community Development if she will provide a breakdown of the amount of LEADER funding allocated in County Kerry in each of the years 2018 to 2022 and to date in 2023, in tabular form. [19689/23]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The LEADER Programme is a key intervention of Our Rural Future, the Government’s Policy for rural development launched in 2021 which aims to deliver a range of actions to rural communities over the lifetime of the policy. It is a multi-annual programme for rural development co-funded by the EU through the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The programme is based on a community-led approach to rural development and plays an important role in supporting communities and enterprises in progressing job creation, social inclusion and environmental projects at local level.

The 2014-2020 LEADER programme for Ireland had an allocation of €250 million. €225 million of this budget was allocated at the outset of the programme to Local Action Groups (LAGs) who deliver the programme and approve projects at local level.

€70 million was allocated for the Transitional LEADER Programme which covered the period 2021-2022 of which €65 million was allocated to the LAGs to deliver the programme.

For the period 2023-2027 €180 million has been allocated to the programme bringing the total for the seven year period of 2021-2027 to €250 million equalling the level of funding provided for the previous seven year period.

Funding is provided for the duration of the period rather than on an annual basis to allow more flexibility to the Local Action Groups to manage the programme budget in their areas of operation.

The allocation covers both core project expenditure and the administration costs of the LAG.

In situations where the LAGs administration and animation allocations are utilised, I approved additional funding in this area, subject to a maximum monthly contribution from the Exchequer, the limits of which were notified to each LAG in April 2021. This contribution is based on the average monthly administration and animation allocation over the period July 2016 to December 2020.

Table 1 below provides the allocation for County Kerry for each of the programming periods and includes the amount of administration and animation funding provided to Kerry LAG in 2022. This funding will continue to be paid to the Kerry LAG in 2023 on submission of completed vouched expenditure claims.

Table 1 – LEADER Funding provided in County Kerry