Rural Schemes Dail Éireann — 2023-04-25 ============================================================ Heather Humphreys (FG), Cavan-Monaghan To clarify something, there has been no downgrading of the north and western region by the European Commission from being a region in transition. This 2018 designation is based on GDP per capita in the region and has been used to calculate European funding allocations for 2021 to 2027. Separately, the European Parliament's committee on regional development categorised the north and west region as a lagging region using a range of other data such as productivity, education and skills. They are two completely different, separate things. I agree with Deputy Ring. Sometimes projects are not delivered as quickly as we would like. We engage with local authorities. We have constant contact with them. We were in touch with them again last week. A new LEADER programme is coming out, which is currently open for expressions of interest. Proposals will come in in due course. Deputy Ring is right. I know Deputy Tóibín is a one-man band in here but he is a party leader. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2023-04-25/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:51:48+00:00 Sitting date: 2023-04-25