Fine Gael TD and Minister of State Patrick O’Donovan has welcomed the announcement of almost €2.2million to Limerick with almost €million for rural Co. Limerick from Minister Michael Ring under his Department’s Social Inclusion Funding.
The Social Inclusion Fund which is funded jointly with the European Union supports the unemployed, people with disabilities, people on low incomes and members of other disadvantaged groups in the Country. The funding will be targeted at Local Development Companies like West Limerick Resources and Ballyhoura Development.
Minister Michael Ring launched the Co. Limerick element of the funding in Ballybrown where he saw examples of the many projects and individuals who had benefitted from the previous rounds of funding.
Patrick O’Donovan said that the total fund for the country is €190million over five years. He added “Investments like these prove that the Government is responding to the needs of disadvantaged and marginalised people by investing in their communities. This funding is a clear example of Government encouraging a bottom-up approach, by allowing local development companies to assess and prioritise the needs of communities, groups and individuals in their own areas.”
“The previous scheme showed the results that can be achieved from investments like this. Over 9,000 were helped to get a higher qualification, almost 6,000 got jobs, and over 110,000 people were helped on a 1:1 basis. It is also clear that given the number of community groups and organisations that engaged with the last scheme that there continues to be a need for investment so this program will be very welcome.”
Patrick O’Donovan added that the scheme was another example of the Government’s continued commitment to invest in rural; communities and marginalised areas and he looked forward to working into the future with Michael Ring on the delivery of further resources to Co. Limerick.
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