Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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48. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the reason Kildare, which is the fifth most populated county in Ireland, did not receive an adequate amount of funding from his Department in each of the tranches which have been announced in 2025; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [68427/25]

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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49. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the number of submissions Kildare County Council have submitted to his Department in 2025; the number of these submissions that have resulted in funding under the different schemes his Department distributes; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [68426/25]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 48 and 49 together.

My Department is committed to supporting thriving communities across the country, including in County Kildare, through a range of funding initiatives. Details of the thousands of funding approvals made by my Department each year across the country are available on my Department’s website, in tabular form at the following link: 

County Kildare was allocated approximately €15 million in funding for 2024 and over €3.8 million to date in 2025. This is across both current and capital programmes operated by my Department. 

The very significant funding approvals in 2024 relate to the success of Kildare across a number of schemes which are not annual in nature, in particular in the Rural Regeneration and Development Fund – with €4.028 million allocated for the Barrow Blueway; and the Libraries Capital Programme with €3 million allocated to the Kildare County Library, Archives and Cultural Centre and €1.9 million for the development of a new library in Clane.

My Department has funded significant projects in Kildare, indeed I was delighted to officially open the Shackleton Experience in Athy in October. The redevelopment of the 300-year-old former town hall has seen the building extended and modernised to become a museum with a dedicated space included to facilitate opportunities for research and education. My Department provided grant funding of over €5.2 million for this project to Kildare County Council under the Rural Regeneration and Development Fund. It is essential that we invest in projects like this to ensure that town centres, like Athy, are vibrant, attractive and more resilient places to live, work, raise a family and invest in.

Funding programmes delivered by my Department are administered in a number of ways, for example through local authorities, and with Pobal, Local Community Development Committees, Local Development Companies and Local Action Groups. This ensures that local needs are identified and targeted in a bottom up approach. For this reason it is not possible to provide a figure for the exact number of all applications submitted by Kildare County Council to my Department for funding in 2025.

My Department has a strong record of investment in County Kildare, and I look forward to continuing to build on this in the months and years ahead. I encourage all such groups to continue to make use of the many opportunities for funding across my Department, which help to support their important work in communities throughout the country.