Scottish Rural Communities Policy Review: stage 2 - Ireland case study

5. Our Rural Futures: Rural Development Policy 2021-2025 and continued support for Rural CLLD

In more recent years, the Irish government has developed a range of national policies designed to support rural and community development including a National Volunteering Strategy 2021-2025, National Social Enterprise Policy 2024-2027 and, building on the Action Plan for Rural Development (2017-2019), a national rural development policy called ‘Our Rural Future’.^[7] ‘Our Rural Future – Rural Development Policy 2021-2025’ contains 150 commitments for delivery across Government over a five-year period and has been described by the Department of Rural and Community Development as an ambitious and transformational policy for rural development.

Support for Community Led Local Development in Ireland is available through specific measures such as the Rural Regeneration and Development Fund which provides investments in the renewal of towns and villages with a population of less than 10,000 people (Department of Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht, 2025e). A total of €250 million in grant aid from 2021-2027 has been committed under the LEADER programme, to support rural communities and enterprises with funding allocated to 28 sub-regional areas based on administrative or county boundaries (Department of Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht, 2024c). The Town and Village Renewal Scheme introduced in 2016 covers a range of projects to support and promote rural areas (Department of Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht, 2025f). The projects that receive funding are decided by local authorities, businesses and communities while the national Tidy Towns initiative supports local communities to take a lead in enhancing their local environment and creating a ‘sense of place’ for people (Department of Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht, 2024d). Our Rural Futures is described as a whole of government policy which puts an emphasis on a place-based approach to sustainable and inclusive rural development, in part through the empowerment of rural communities to deliver responses that meet their needs. For example, Policy Measure 147 commits to supporting rural communities to develop long term cohesive Master Plans for their area to support an integrated, place-based approach to rural development.^[8]