Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 17 February 2022
11. Deputy Colm Burke asked the Minister for Rural and Community Development the total amount of funding provided to community and voluntary organisations specifically to assist with the impact of Covid-19; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [8653/22]
View answerI thank the Department for the work it has done. My question is on the funding provided to community and voluntary organisations specifically to assist with the impact of Covid-19. This funding was extremely beneficial in helping communities. Now it is about trying to encourage communities to get back into full action. We have had the Covid-19 stability fund and the town and village renewal schemes. What changes do we need to make to ensure there is adequate support for the community organisations that made a huge contribution during very difficult times?
The Department introduced a range of supports to help community and voluntary organisations meet the challenges they faced during and after Covid-19. For instance, the Covid-19 stability fund supported 863 organisations in 2020 and 2021, with total funding of approximately €48.8 million. In 2020, €4.2 million was provided under the Covid-19 emergency fund which targeted help at groups participating in the Government's community call initiative.
The community enhancement programme provides vital supports to assist local groups to re-open their facilities post Covid-19. The programme provided €4.5 million funding in 2021 for small capital grants for the improvement of facilities and it is planned to run the scheme again in 2022.
In November 2021, we launched the new community activities fund. This €9 million fund is being provided to support community and voluntary groups impacted by Covid-19, helping them with their bills and maintenance. The community services programme, CSP, also funded by the Department supports more than 420 community organisations nationwide. In response to the Covid-19 crisis, the Department developed a €8.95 million CSP support fund to cover the period 2020 to 2021.
As Deputy Burke can see, the Department has responded very well to the needs of the community and voluntary sector throughout Covid-19. In general, I encourage all organisations to check the gov.ie website in order to be aware of funding opportunities as they become available. The community activities fund being run through local community development centres is the most current of these.
I thank the Minister of State. The community activities fund he outlined is a €9 million fund. My understanding is that demand for the fund may have exceeded the total funding available. Is any provision being made whereby additional money can be put into this? It is extremely important. The town and village renewal scheme had funding of €15.4 million. This goes back to the issue of hubs. The Minister of State referred to 17 hubs in Cork. Two of these are in my constituency even though 50% of the constituency is rural. We have had very little by way of a positive response from Cork County Council on this matter. The town and village renewal scheme and the community activities fund are extremely important. It is important that we ensure there is adequate funding for community groups.
This year there was a significant increase in the town and village renewal scheme with €22 million allocated to it. With regard to the Deputy's point on the community activities fund being oversubscribed we do not know this yet. It may be happening at a local level. Over the coming month or two we will get feedback from the local authorities, which will tell us how many applications they have had. I suspect it will be oversubscribed. Later in the year we will look at the community enhancement programme, which is a similarly run programme through the local community development centres. There will be opportunities for similar type applications under this front later in the year. We monitor the situation closely in terms of demand and take-up of grants. I acknowledge the work of volunteer centres throughout the country. We often talk about the community enhancement programme and the town and village renewal scheme. We also support the volunteer centres and we now have one in every county. I acknowledge their work particularly during Covid.
I thank the Minister of State and the Minister for all the work particularly during Covid-19.
My understanding is County Cork has the largest allocation of broadband connection points. There has been some exploration of how more might be got, perhaps through a private channel in the short term, before we develop additional support for it. The Deputy and I have been in touch about this. We have done a little bit of digging.
