Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party)
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My Department's mission is to promote rural and community development and to support vibrant, inclusive and sustainable communities throughout Ireland. The underlying basis for all funding delivered through my Department's community development programmes is to enable communities themselves to identify and address their needs in this context.

The Social Inclusion and Community Activation Programme (SICAP) is a national programme overseen by my Department that aims to reduce poverty and promote social inclusion and equality by supporting disadvantaged communities and individuals. Delivered in both rural and urban areas by Local Development Companies (LDC’s), the supports provided are based on needs identified at a local level.

SICAP has two overall programme goals - Goal One provides supports to community groups and Goal Two involves support for individuals. The programme has significant flexibility to address the locally identified needs of those most marginalised in our communities.

New communities have been a target group for SICAP in both the current and previous programming periods and a Pobal report in 2021 emphasised the importance of SICAP in providing supports to these communities.

I believe SICAP is a hugely important programme and I was delighted to secure a total increase of €5.3 million for the programme over the last 2 years, increasing its annual funding allocation to €44.4m. In addition, to assist in the community response to the arrival of Ukrainians, a total of €15 million in SICAP funding was provided to Local Development Companies in 2022 and 2023.

Funding for SICAP is subject to the annual budgetary process. I can assure the Deputy that I review the level of funding for all programmes each year as part of the budgetary process and it remains my intention to continue to prioritise funding for SICAP.