Energy Bills Support Fund For Parish Halls & Community Centres

The Department of Rural and Community Development have announced a new €10 million fund to support local community & voluntary groups with their energy bills.

The Community Support Fund will provide small grants to a wide and diverse range of local community groups to assist with their running costs. Funding will be available to support Parish Halls, Community Centres, Local Development Associations, Social Clubs, ICA Groups, Senior Citizen Groups, Men’s Sheds, Women’s Sheds and much more.

The chairperson of Ballyhoura Development, Mary Laffan, in welcoming the allocation of €362,678 to Cork County and €350,592 to County Limerick for community energy grants, encouraged local groups to apply over the coming weeks.

The new scheme has been devised to support groups with their energy costs who may not have been deemed eligible under previous Government schemes. These include groups that operate from parish halls and who need support with running costs such as energy or insurance bills. Groups can also use the funding to carry out small upgrade works and to purchase equipment to support their activities such as laptops and printers, lawnmowers, training equipment, etc.

Announcing the funding, Minister Humphreys said,  "This new scheme is about supporting these groups with their costs whether it’s the electricity bill, insurance costs or other overheads. These local committees work hard to make sure they can keep the lights on and run fantastic local services and events for young and old to enjoy. These will be small grants ranging from a few hundred euro to a few thousand euro but I know they will make a big difference to the groups involved". 

Minister O’Brien added that the funding is "will help thousands of community organisations, clubs, men’s and women’s sheds, youth centres and parish halls, to continue to provide their valuable services to the people in their areas.”

The funding is administered by Local Community Development Committees. Groups should contact their LCDC for further details and applications for funding can be made to the relevant LCDC. 

Full scheme details are now available on the Pobal website: