THE DEPARTMENT OF Environment will spend €220 million on rural development by 2020 and has explained how the money will be allocated.
The money, which will come through the Leader funding programme, will be spread around the country, with each county getting at least €5 million.
Junior Minister at the Department Ann Phelan told the Dáil last week that the money was allocated on a number of criteria including population, density and size.
She said that the allocation was “fair and consistent”, when asked b Fine Gael’s Brendan Griffin why so much of the funding was going to the western seaboard.
Cork was allocated €6 million as a minimum in order to ensure a viable allocation to each of the three administrative districts within the county. The fact that the population in Cork, outside the city, is almost twice that of any other county and more than three times some counties, was also taken into consideration.
Nationally, these minimum allocations total €81 million and a measure of population density was used to distribute half of the remaining fund (€69.5m).
The second half of the remaining fund (€69.5 million) was allocated to each county using a Resource Allocation Model (RAM) using census data.
Overall, Cork leads the way, being allocated €13.9 million, with Donegal and Galway on €12.9 million and €12.1 million respectively.
The funding is lower than the 2007-2013 programme, but Phelan says it is the maximum the government can afford to allocate.
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