Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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The CAP Strategic Plan 2023-2027 (CSP) has a budget of €9.8 billion over five years.

This is made up of:

• Pillar 1 Direct Payments of €5.98 billion, which is entirely funded by the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund (EAGF); and
• Pillar 2 Rural Development interventions which comprise €3.86 billion, which is co-funded by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) and the national exchequer.

While the vast majority of this budget is directed at farmers, there are a number of interventions that are targeted at other actors in the Agricultural Sector, or for other types of support for Rural Development. These include payments to advisors in the Knowledge Transfer intervention, as well as payments to advisors and training developers in the training interventions for ACRES, the Suckler Carbon Efficiency Programme (SCEP) and Continuous Professional development (CPD) for Advisors. The ultimate beneficiaries of all of these interventions are farmers.

There is also a budget for technical assistance, which is used to fund the National CAP Network, independent Strategic Environmental Assessments of the CSP amendments, some of the Managing Authority costs including the operation of the Monitoring Committee and publicity actions, and evaluations of the implementation of the CSP as detailed in the Evaluation Plan.

Between them, these amount to approximately €68 million in programmed budget to non-farmers, or 1.76% of the overall €3.86bn Pillar 2 expenditure in the CSP.

LEADER is managed and paid from the Department of Rural and Community Development (DRCD), with a budget of €180 million in the CSP ringfenced for this programme, as required by the Strategic Plan Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2021/2115).

As LEADER is a community-led programme supporting rural communities including social revitalisation and infrastructural investments, some of the funding available goes to non-farmers.