Debate contribution: Financial Support for Rural Communities in Mid Ulster
Debate contribution by Mr Andrew McMurray on .
- MLA
- Mr Andrew McMurray
- Party at the time
- Alliance Party
- Date
- 12 November 2024
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Adjournment
- Heading
- Financial Support for Rural Communities in Mid Ulster
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4658859
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I thank the Member for securing the Adjournment debate. While I am a proud Member for South Down, my roots, as others have said, are in mid-Ulster. It is good to speak in the debate. Being a Member for South Down, I know the value of communities and the role that they play, particularly in rural locations. Rural communities face many pressures, not least the recent changes to farm support budgets and inheritance tax for farms. Indeed, I will ham up my mid-Ulster roots by saying that I was in communication with a lady from Cookstown in mid-Ulster regarding the inheritance tax. The Minister will deal with that point. It is an important point that has ramifications across the board.
I will take a slightly different angle, looking at communities and community groups. As we know, communities can be defined in quite a few ways. We can belong to a community due to our geographical location, a shared belief system or a common interest. Regardless, the term "community" engenders strong feelings and associations that are not simply attributed to family ties. Communities also provide important support for the individuals in them. I have no doubt that every Member in the Chamber regularly signposts constituents to a host of small community groups and organisations in their area, and it would be an understatement to say that those groups are pillars of our rural communities. Nevertheless, many of those groups depend on volunteers and have few financial resources to support their services. Only the other day, I was privileged to attend an event in the Long Gallery to celebrate the eight rural support networks that are active across Northern Ireland. Those support networks act as go-betweens to connect rural community groups and organisational statutory bodies. However, on reading the synopsis of their 2024 membership survey, their concerns over finance issues is palpable. The survey shows that rural communities face many of the challenges experienced by Northern Ireland as a whole. A major issue that member organisations identified was poor mental health. Other major issues were poverty and problems with physical infrastructure, physical health, transport and housing. A lot of those issues have already been touched on. Some of those challenges are particularly acute in rural communities, but they are cross-departmental issues, and it is for the Executive as a whole to address them as a priority. Community groups already work hard to buffer some of the impacts of those challenges. They do so with little support. Of the survey respondents, 75% had no paid staff, and 64% said that they did not have enough volunteers. More than half operate on less than £10,000 a year; 65% of member groups said that funding day-to-day costs was a top challenge; 72% said that funding to run local programmes was a top challenge; and 61% said that they needed more training and support to complete funding applications. That highlights the support that is required. I draw attention to the rural micro capital grants scheme (RMCGS), the second tranche of which opened for applications yesterday. The scheme provides micro capital grants of between £500 and £2,000 to rural, community-led, voluntary organisations for projects tackling issues such as local poverty and social isolation. It is a valuable scheme that will provide important support for some of our local community groups. Before I conclude, I highlight the impact of Brexit and the loss of EU funding — the elephant in the room. Pillar 2 of the common agricultural policy (CAP) was specifically concerned with rural development. I welcome Minister Muir's recent discussions with the Finance Minister to see how we could restore that funding through a local, ring-fenced budget. I hope that, alongside farming, fisheries and the environment, those efforts will be supported by the Executive.
628 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.
- Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.03 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
- None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
- Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.89).
- No identity-based framing was identified (1.00).
- The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.
This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.
Jev’s structured answers
| Question | Probability | Met? |
|---|---|---|
| Identity framing | 0.04 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.02 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.02 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.02 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.03 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.89 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.03 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 1.00 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.00 |
| Adopts it | 0.00 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-related subject | 0.51 |
| Another identity-related subject | 0.23 |
| Constitutional question, Brexit, the Windsor Framework and sovereignty | 0.19 |
| Disability (including neurodivergence and mental health), disabled people and disability or sickness benefits | 0.04 |
| Religion and belief (including people of no religion), churches, faith communities and religious prejudice (including antisemitism and anti-Muslim prejudice) | 0.01 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:33 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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