Funding Programmes

Last year, 133 people drowned, the majority of them men in tragic circumstances. When a drowning occurs, bodies are usually recovered thanks in no small part to the many voluntary search, rescue and recovery groups. Meath River Rescue is one such group and it has twice benefitted from LEADER funding.

When it comes to large funding programmes, it can be hard to see beyond the big numbers to the actual impact they make on communities. It’s only when you look at the nitty gritty that their true value reveals itself.

As LEADER reaches a special milestone, we look at the project that got it there.

- Excerpts from reports by Dr Brendan O’Keeffe, Niall Crowley, Debra Mountford, Seán O’Riordan:

The Department of Environment, Community and Local Government this afternoon released figures to ‘Changing Ireland’ that show the number of projects funded under the Local and Community Development Programme.

'Changing Ireland’ interviewed Minister Pat Carey yesterday on a range of topics, including a key question over changing structures for State support for communities within the framework of the Local and Community Development Programme.

The Community Development Programme, first established in 1990, is to be absorbed into a new unnamed programme that also incorporates the Local Development and Social Inclusion Programme.

Volunteers, workers and SIPTU mounted a successful campaign to have cuts to Community Employment Schemes reversed. At a time of rising unemployment, the Schemes...