On 17 and 18 June 2020 the EPA held its National Water Event as an online conference. This year's theme was 'Restoring our waters'. This years event was free to attend. It was the EPA's largest water event ever, with over 1250 attending. To everyone who joined us: thanks for attending; thanks for your probing questions; thanks for your passion; thanks for caring about our waters. We can achieve more working together. Special thanks to all our presenters and the team who worked behind the scenes to make sure this years conference happened. For science and stories about water quality in Ireland, check out www.catchments.ie

1. Communities in Action
Funding Communities to Engage in Protecting Waters - An Introduction
Fran Igoe, Local Authority Waters Programme

2. Overview
• Why the need to fund to
communities to engage in
water protection?
• What funding is out there?
• Accessibility of funding
• LAWPRO role & experience
• Strategic approach
• Ambition

3. Why Fund Communities to
Engage in Protecting Waters?
• Increase community
participation in their local
waterbodies
• Pride of place
• Fulfilment, enjoyment and
increased sense of community
• Increase potential to bring in
additional funding to address
water quality issues
• Improve water quality
We need to think about funding for:
1. communities involvement in projects
2. continuous engagement

4. Importance of engaging communities in WFD
John Dewey (1963) philosopher advocated project-based learning to help students
learn together and through direct experience. Experience and education (image courtesy
ITMA VirginiaTech.)

5. Examples of potential funding streams
for communities to help protect waters
Up to €25,000 (typically < €5,000)
€1,000 - €200,000
€1,000 - €40,000 (typically <10,000)
€50,000- €20m
Various LA schemes eg. Environment
Action Fund, Community Water
Development Fund
LEADER, IFI, FLAGS
Peatlands Community Engagement
Scheme; Heritage Council, Arts Council
LEADER Cooperation, EU LIFE, European
Innovation Partnerships, EU INTERREG,
Horizon 2020
Above figures are rough guidelines – there are
exceptions to the stated amounts
Funding stream Funding ballpark

6. Examples of potential funding streams
for communities to help protect waters
Up to €25,000 (typically < €5,000)
€1,000 - €200,000
€1,000 - €40,000 (typically <10,000)
€50,000- €20m
Awareness raising, signage, small ground
works
Larger scale engagement, reach scale
restoration and invasive species removal
projects, often multiple stakeholders
Visioning exercises, invasive species
removal, larger ground works
Subcatchment to intra-catchment
projects, multiple partners and
stakeholders, multiple pressures
addressed
Above figures are rough guidelines – there are
exceptions to the stated amounts
Community action Funding ballpark

7. What type of on the ground projects do
we encourage?
• Any project that aims to
enhance water quality!
• Some at catchment scale
• Most much smaller
• Context of local area
• Bring in Biodiversity and
Climate benefits a bonus
• Integrate into a larger
project
start small with pilots and
expand into larger strategic
projects

11. • Capacity of communities
• Matching funding,
• Special permissions,
• Proprietary rights
• Community understanding
limited
• Unsure of types of projects
• Environmental projects
complicated
• Animation of communities
• Application complex and time
consuming
• LCDC animation
* Information from surveys conducted with LEADER Development Officers, LEADER CEOs & ILDN and Community
Water Officers in 2017
Constraints to community access

12. Engagement with Local Community
Development Committee Chief Officers
– a dialog between LAWPRO & LCDCs
2020

13. Community Water Development Fund
- set up specifically in encourage greater
community engagement
Education/Awareness
Applications Received by Project Type – Open Call €225,000

14. 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
Tidy Towns
Env/Biodiversity/Heritage/Tourist
Group
Dev/Residents Assoc
Social Enterprise/Company with no
Share Capital
River Trust/Catchment Assoc
Angling Club/Assoc
Other
Festival/Event Group
CWDF Open call 2020 = €225,000; 145 Applications

15. Integrating water & community
objectives to built projects
Incorporate water objectives to
Town and Village Renewal Scheme
CLÁR Scheme
Urban regeneration
Public Realm projects
Blueways
Greenways
So significant roles for LAs
Courtesy P. O’Dwyer, TCC

16. How can larger scale projects be achieved?
• Increase collaboration across funding streams
(e.g., CWDF, IFI, Climate Action etc) at a minimum
• Take a multi–agency approach to project
development, assessment and regulation (e.g., a
process to assess & support projects)
• Identify areas where the “multiple benefits”
align

17. Generally:- Agency interaction ideally should be
• Supportive and open
• Engage with communities at the right level at the
right time
• Regulation oversight should be collaborative
• Bureaucratic burden (& costs) kept to a minimum
Remember –
- Community volunteers are busy
- Focus community energy to where it is best spent

18. Looking ahead
• Environmental projects not like other standard
projects
• Encourage landscape approach incorporating
Integrated Catchment Management &
communities
• Encourage smart projects – tie in with other
objectives & funding

19. Finally
• Communities have an important role
• Capacity issues for communities needs attention
to sustain projects
• Funding needs to be targeted and accessible
• Is there a need for a new funding framework to
support projects for Water, Biodiversity, Climate?

20. Thank you
Special thanks to Sheevaun Thompson, Ray Spain and Bernie Flaherty for their
assistance with this presentation, our CWOs, and the many community groups we
have been working with.