Ciarán Ahern (Dublin South West, Labour)
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327. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment if he will grant a contract extension of three months to those projects funded by his Department under the community climate action programme from the end of September 2025 to the end of December 2025, in order to enhance the impact of the projects without altering the financial framework established in the original agreements after delays were experienced in commencing the projects as a result of the impact of Covid-19; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21186/25]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal East, Fianna Fail)
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I understand this Question refers to Strand 2 of the Community Climate Action Programme which has €5 million allocated to an open call for Education, Capacity Building and Learning by Doing Projects. The programme, consisting of 19 projects, was launched in 2022 with several projects now nearing completion.

This programme, which is administered by Pobal, facilitates organisations and their partners to collaboratively develop supports, tools, know-how and approaches to assist communities to take meaningful action on climate change. The primary focus of this funding is for the development of learning outputs (toolkits, apps, guidance, tools, design for training programmes etc.) which can be used by community groups, post funding, to act on climate change.

Projects that have been affected by delays can submit extension requests to Pobal, who then engage with departmental officials for a decision. To date, all the projects that have submitted a request for an extension have been granted one. Pobal are maintaining communication with the project teams and have monitoring tools in place to ensure overall programme completion remains with the original timeframes envisaged, with extensions facilitated where feasible.