Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 13 June 2023
79. Deputy Sean Sherlock asked the Minister for Rural and Community Development the number of applications received under the community support fund to deal with energy bills to date; and their county of origin, in tabular form. [28047/23]
View answerLast November, I was delighted to launch the 2022 Community Support Fund (CSF) under the Community Enhancement Programme, with funding of €10 million to assist local community and voluntary groups across the country with a multitude of costs including energy and utility bills, other operating costs, minor upgrade works and small capital purchases.
The CSF funding is administered on behalf of my Department by Local Community Development Committees (LCDCs) across the country, with support from their Local Authority. It should be noted a number of LCDCs are still assessing applications, and successful grantees are being announced on a county-by-county basis, therefore the information requested by the Deputy is not available in all cases, however, a breakdown of the information, where available, can be found in the attachment, which is being provided to the Deputy.
The 2022 CSF is now closed to applicants and details of successful projects will be published on my Department’s website www.gov.ie/drcd in the coming weeks.
In addition to the Community Support Fund, the Community and Voluntary Energy Support Scheme (CVESS) was launched last November to provide for a once-off payment to eligible charities and community and voluntary sector organisations, that fall outside the remit of other energy support schemes. The CVESS was extended and streamlined earlier this year to make it easier for organisations with multiple facilities to apply, and to allow section 39 organisations to receive CVESS funding in respect of any shortfalls in the energy cost funding provided to them by the HSE/Dept of Health. I was pleased to announce Tranche 5 of funding last month, which brought the total number of organisations supported to 846, with over €1.35m now disbursed.
I look forward to continuing to deliver meaningful supports like the CSF and CVESS to local communities as we support communities to respond to the challenges they face.
