Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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389. To ask the Minister for Rural and Community Development if he will detail his Department's various capital funding schemes, including the total of each fund in 2025, in tabular form; the timeline for applications (calls and deadlines); the general focus of each scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6957/25]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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My Department provides funding through a range of highly impactful schemes and programmes aimed at supporting sustainable, inclusive and thriving communities.

Budget 2025 provided my Department with a gross allocation of €472 million. This allocation provides for €212 million in funding for rural development and €260 million in funding for community development. My Department was allocated €235 million for capital investment, with the remaining funding for current expenditure supports.

The budget allocation provides for significant capital investment through, for example, the Rural Regeneration and Development Fund (€60 million), the LEADER programme (€42 million), the Town and Village Renewal Scheme (€20 million), CLÁR (€11 million), the Local Improvement Scheme (€15 million), and the Outdoor Recreation Infrastructure Scheme (€16 million).

With regard to specific timelines for scheme launches, these details will be released in due course throughout the year, with my Departments website providing information on all of our schemes once available. I would encourage anyone interested in my Department’s funding schemes to visit our website at www.gov.ie/drcd where details of future calls and deadlines will be posted.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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390. To ask the Minister for Rural and Community Development if he will reverse the cuts in funding for the social inclusion and community activation programme, which took effect during the years of economic austerity; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6958/25]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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The Social Inclusion and Community Activation Programme (SICAP), is our country’s primary social inclusion programme, which aims to reduce poverty and promote social inclusion and equality by supporting disadvantaged communities and individuals. This is a national programme that is delivered in both rural and urban areas by Local Development Companies (LDCs) to help those in the greatest need.

The current iteration of SICAP began on 1 January 2024 and will run until the end of 2028. My Department committed over €47.4m in core funding in 2024 for SICAP & has committed over €48.9m for 2025.

The funding for SICAP is subject to the annual budgetary Estimates process. I acknowledge that funding for social inclusion measures were reduced after 2008. However, since then, a wide variety of additional social inclusion measures have been initiated and funded, with some examples being the Empowering Communities Programme, the Community Development Programme and most recently the Community Connection Project announced last year.

The work of SICAP is of huge importance to communities across Ireland in tackling the issues they face, linking in directly with the agreed objectives of the Local Economic and Community Plans. SICAP funding has increased year on year since 2022, a total increase of €9.8 million in the programme increasing the annual funding to over €48.9m in 2025. Separate to this increase in funding, I also secured additional funding of €36m from 2022 - 2025 through SICAP to support Ukrainian Nationals displaced by war and International Protection Applicants.

In line with commitments in the Programme for Government, I can assure the Deputy that I will review the level of funding for all programmes each year as part of the budgetary process and I intend to continue to prioritise additional funding for SICAP.