Departmental Funding Seanad Éireann — 2026-06-17 ============================================================ Mary Butler (FF), Waterford I thank Senator Scahill for raising this issue, which I am taking on behalf of the Minister of State, Deputy Buttimer. He is not in a position to be here himself but he asked me to take it. We all recognise that volunteers are the backbone of every community. The majority of us who end up in politics have probably come through the community system. If you are on one committee you are on five. There is no doubt that we are involved in so many things locally. That is how I ended up becoming a politician after being involved in the community sector for the majority of my life. That is why community support funds are really important. The fund was first announced in November 2022 and it provided funding of €10 million to support community groups impacted by rising energy costs. It supported groups, particularly in disadvantaged areas, with their running costs such as utility or insurance bills, as well as with improvements to their facilities. Groups were also able to use the funding to carry out necessary repairs and to purchase equipment such as tables and chairs, tools and signage, laptops and printers, lawn-mowers, canopies and training equipment. They were never more important than when we had Storm Éowyn not so long ago. Community organisations and groups were able to step up and support communities that had no electricity and were not able to heat a bottle for a baby or charge a phone. We recognise how important the groups are. The community support fund is the latest iteration of the programme, which was formerly known as the community enhancement programme and has been delivered by the Department of Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht since 2018. The programme continues to be delivered today under the title of the local enhancement programme, LEP. Since 2018, the Department has provided funding of €72.9 million to support projects in more than 36,000 community groups and organisations the length and breadth of the country. The local enhancement programme is targeted towards supporting communities that are impacted by disadvantage, as identified in the local economic and community plan. It provides small capital grants to community and voluntary groups for the improvement or refurbishment of their facilities and for the purchase of equipment. The local enhancement programme for 2026, which was announced on 5 December 2025, was welcomed by Senator Scahill. It provides €7 million in capital supports to many small community groups and organisations, particularly those which serve disadvantaged communities in rural and urban areas. The fund is administered locally on behalf of the Department by local community development committees, LCDCs, across the country, with support from the local authorities. Each LCDC received an allocation of funding under the programme, which it will distribute to eligible applicants and projects once the appraisal process has been completed. That is all very welcome. It should be noted that the LEP for 2026 provided only capital supports. That is the issue Senator Scahill raises. The Government is aware of the pressure on community groups regarding current expenditure items such as electricity bills and maintenance. This will be considered in the context of the 2027 budgetary Estimates process. The funding allocation is calculated using a resource allocation model that takes population levels and deprivation indices into account. Using this methodology, a baseline amount of funding of €100,000 is provided to each local authority to ensure a minimum level of funding intervention in each area, sufficient to deliver tangible improvements. Senator Scahill has welcomed the funding that has been provided over many years. It is equitably distributed across all the local authorities. LCDCs do great work. The point he makes relates to the pressure on community groups due to expenditure on electricity bills and other running costs. As the Minister of State outlined in his response, this will be considered in the context of the 2027 budgetary Estimates process. I will speak to him about this. --- 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/seanad/2026-06-17/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:04+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-06-17