Deputy Noel Coonan has welcomed the news that the Enviroment Minister Phil Hogan has decided to increase the amount of money being made available to leader programmes through the rural Development Programme for the period 2014 to 2020.
EU regulations stipulate that 5% of the rural development programme fund must be allocated to Leader but 7%has been allocated to the programme this year.
Once approval for the programme has been given by the European Commision, local action groups in tipperary will be invited to submit ideas for how funding should be spent.
According to Deputy Coonan, these groups will be set up in accordance with the EU Regulations and will consist of representations across public and private socio-economic interests.
