Increased transparency has been brought to the amount of pillar two CAP funding received by non-agricultural businesses and voluntary organisations in the Department of Agriculture’s CAP beneficiaries list.

Sports clubs, a data centre, tourism marketing entities and community centres were among the 862 recipients of CAP funding listed by the Department under the heading of LEADER, quality of life and diversification.

Previously, it was just local community development committees that had been listed alongside the overall amount received in each committee’s area.

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For example, Tipperary LCDC is listed as having received €2.67m in the 2023 financial year but just €139,000 in the latest list as more entities are individually listed as having received funds in the county.

Among the top individual recipients of LEADER, quality of life and diversification CAP funding were Dublin’s Saggart School House Community Centre CL, which was awarded €390,029, as well as Roscrea Tennis Club with €361,000 and Killaloe Ballina Tennis Club with €343,512.

Clubs

Searching the funding list for ‘club’ returns 65 results which received €3.7m in CAP funding over the last financial year, doing so for ‘GAA’ bring up 44 results representing €2.1m in funding, ‘tennis’ finds four beneficiaries with funds of €920,000, ‘rugby’ brings up three results amounting to €244,000 and ‘athletic’ another three results which received a combined €700,000 in CAP funding.

St Laurence O’Toole Athletic Club in Co Carlow was the 16th highest recipient of CAP funding across all funding categories for the 2024 financial year having received €488,600.

Feohanagh Castlemahon Resource Centre CL received €286,801 and Data Storage Management Ltd received €196,810.

A search of the word ‘tourism’ suggests that at least €338,000 in CAP payments were made to tourism outfits, with the largest recipients of funding under this search result being Visit Wexford Tourism CLG at €78,478 and Offaly Tourism Marketing CLG at €57,000.