email editor
Greencastle Harbour in Co Donegal is one of the 93 projects to benefit from €1.2 million announced today
The Minister for Agriculture Food and the Marine, Dara Calleary TD, has announced the award of grants worth €1.2 million to 93 local community groups and micro enterprises by six of the seven Fisheries Local Action Groups established under Ireland’s European Maritime and Fisheries Fund Programme (EMFF).
The grants are co-funded by the Government of Ireland and the European Union.
Announcing the first tranche of grant awards for 2020, Minister Calleary said, “The FLAG Scheme under my Department’s EMFF Seafood Development Programme is unique in having representatives of our traditional fishing communities make the funding award decisions so that vital local funding gets to the many community development groups and events in our fishing communities, together with important development funding to micro enterprises involved in fisheries and aquaculture, marine tourism and marine leisure activities.
The one thing that unites all these projects is their contribution to the economic and social development of traditional fishing communities, which is what the FLAG scheme is all about.”
Minister Calleary added, “The FLAG Scheme has been operating for just a few years now and with its €12 million allocation under my Department’s EMFF Programme, it has gone from strength to strength. This is testament not just to the demand for such local development funding but very much to the hard work of the local volunteers to make up the boards of each of our seven FLAGs.”
Details of the FLAG scheme and how to apply can be found at www.bim.ie/schemes/
The EMFF Operational Programme was launched in January 2016. The Programme provides €240m in funding to the seafood sector (fisheries, aquaculture and seafood processing) over the period 2014 to 2020. The Programme is co-funded by the Exchequer and the EU.
FLAG, Fisheries Local Area Action Group (2014 – 2020) is a coastal community development strategy with a fund of €12 million for 7 designated Irish coastal communities. The 7 FLAGs are South FLAG (Cork), Southwest (Kerry, Limerick), South East (Waterford, Wexford, Wicklow) West, (Galway, Clare), Northwest (Mayo, Sligo, Leitrim), North (Donegal), and North East (Dublin, Louth, Meath).
Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM), the Seafood Development Agency, assists FLAGs to deliver this scheme through administering supports via grant-aid, training and on the ground facilitation, with dedicated regional FLAG coordinators in each region.
The grant awards were as follows:
|
FLAG |
Number projects | Total Investment | Grant Awards |
| Northwest | 15 | €469,956 | €229,332 |
| South | 11 | €370,998 | €200,465 |
| Southeast | 11 | €395,837 | €200,398 |
| Southwest | 14 | €316,175 | €158,424 |
| West | 6 | €477,193 | €237,641 |
| North | 36 | €287,430 | €203,777 |
| TOTAL | 93 | €2,317,592 | €1,230,040 |
Details of the individual grant awards are set out below for each of the six FLAGs.
Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine funded Local Authority works 2020
