Departmental Funding
Dail Éireann — 2026-03-26
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Jerry Buttimer (FG), Cork South-Central

I join with Deputy Ward in sending our condolences to Deputy Roche. I thank the Deputy for taking the question.
Our Department's mission is to promote rural and community development and support vibrant, inclusive and sustainable communities throughout Ireland. A number of programmes provide funding for staff resources to engage with and support communities, including building their capacity to access Government funding schemes. The social inclusion and community activation programme, SICAP, is the State’s primary social inclusion programme. It provides supports to disadvantaged communities and individuals to improve their life chances.
The SICAP initiative supports collective community engagement, providing direct supports to local community groups, LCGs, and networks. This includes developing their capacity to better engage with other groups, improve outcomes in their communities, and address social exclusion issues. In 2025, SICAP supported over 2,500 LCGs and networks in this way. Additionally, the empowering communities programme, ECP, enhances access to key services and supports communities to respond to area-based poverty and social exclusion. Community workers act as a local resource, as Members will know, including supporting groups with activities such as funding applications and administrative requirements.
Separately, our Department’s LEADER programme is a community-led approach to local development delivered in rural areas across the country by a network of local action groups, LAGs. The funding provided by our Department supports eligible projects relating to community groups and rural businesses, and also contributes to LAG administration costs, in terms of the budgets there, as the Minister said, to support work such as engaging with prospective applicants regarding their application.
I assure the Deputy that work remains ongoing in our Department to look at the best ways to ensure that disadvantaged communities are provided with the support they need to underpin their sustainable development.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-03-26/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:47+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-03-26