On 10th March 2017 the Minister of State for Communities and the National Drugs Strategy Catherine Byrne TD, announced a new €2m Capital grants scheme for disadvantaged urban and rural areas. The scheme is focused on providing small-scale capital grants to help grass roots community projects get underway or take the next step towards completion.

The aim of the Scheme is to enhance communities, address disadvantage and improve social cohesion at a local level by providing access to small-scale capital grants. The Scheme is being administered by the Local Community Development Committees (LCDCs) under the remit of the Local Authorities (LAs) on behalf of the Department. The LCDCs will be responsible for targeting and allocating funding as they are ideally placed to identify the applications which most suitably address the Scheme’s target groups and issues in each LA administrative area.

Locally based community and voluntary groups and projects with a clearly defined community and social cohesion focus will be considered eligible to apply. The Scheme will offer grants of €1,000 for groups. In certain cases, where applicants can provide evidence/support a larger sum to a maximum of €2,500, will be considered by the LCDC, where it believes the project requires the additional funding to be delivered successfully

For further information and application forms please click here to visit the Fingal County Council website.