Funds of €400,000, which have been held in trust since 2019, are available to support the country’s agricultural shows in 2022. However, a review of total funding for this year is underway and that process is expected to be completed shortly.

The issue of the provision of funding for these shows was raised in the Seanad this morning (Wednesday, March 2) by Fine Gael’s Senator Tim Lombard, who spoke of the importance of the country’s agricultural shows to rural communities.

More than 120 of these shows are set to make a welcome return in 2022 following two years of disruption due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Minister of State with responsibility for Community Development and Charities, Joe O’Brien confirmed that, in 2019, total funding of €600,000 was granted to the Irish Shows Association (ISA) to support the running of shows in 2020.

This funding was provided by the the Department of Rural and Community Development, and was in line with similar funding provided the previous two years, Minister O’Brien said.

The ISA is the official body representing agricultural shows on an all-island basis.

However, the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in early March 2020 caused a two-year disruption and that amount of €600,000 was held in trust by the ISA to be carried forward and used by the shows when they became operational again.

Despite the fact that the shows were not running for that period, they continued to incur operational costs, the minister said.

Following a request from the ISA, Minister for Rural and Community Development, Heather Humphreys, agreed in 2021 that €200,000 of the total funding held in trust could be used to cover these costs.

“These costs were fixed and were required to be met at a time when the shows had no access to fundraising sources,” Minister O’Brien said.

“Such costs included web hosting, domain names, storage of equipment, rent of land and office space, and bank costs,” he explained.

“The remaining funds held in trust – €400,000 – will be available for the coming season and Minister Humphreys has committed to reviewing the funding in place for 2022 and that process is expected to be completed shortly.”

When pressed on the completion date of that funding review by Sentaor Lombard, the minister said he would be discussing the matter with Minister Humphreys this evening (Wednesday, March 2).

But he reaffirmed support for agricultural shows and said that there are huge levels of excitement among the committees for the coming year.