How LEADER funds reach your project
LEADER uses a bottom-up Community-Led Local Development (CLLD) approach. Local Action Groups (LAGs) have real decision-making power — they select projects, manage contracts, and monitor delivery within their area. It reimburses: you spend first and claim after, and you can ask for phased payments once a fifth of the eligible cost is spent.
EAFRDReg. (EU) 2021/2115 · financing and clearance under Reg. (EU) 2021/2116€250m: €70m transitional 2021–22 + €180m 2023–27
One programme, too many disconnected records. Delivery notes, partner decisions, expenditure, results and reporting evidence often sit in different places.
How the money reaches an organisation
Every level here can be asked for its own process map. That is the point of yours.
European Commission — DG AGRI / EAFRD
Approves Ireland's CAP Strategic Plan 2023–2027 under Reg. (EU) 2021/2115 and clears the paying agency's annual accounts
Dept. of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM)
Managing Authority and Ireland's accredited Paying Agency for the full CAP Strategic Plan
Dept. of Rural & Community Development & the Gaeltacht (DRCDG)
Contracting Authority with delegated Paying Agency functions for the LEADER measure; runs on-the-spot and ex-post checks
Pobal (on behalf of DRCDG)
Administrative Checking Body for the Department: checks monthly administration returns, projects of LDC-led LAGs and all in-house projects. In LCDC-led LAGs the Lead Financial Partner — usually the Local Development Company — checks the other project claims.
Local Action Groups (LAGs) — 28 sub-regional areas
Select projects, manage contracts, monitor delivery within their rural sub-region. The number of LAGs follows the approved local development strategies in those 28 areas.
👉 Your organisation sits at this level
Project promoters (beneficiaries)
Community groups, social enterprises, rural businesses and farm families diversifying beyond primary agriculture — primary agriculture itself is not eligible. The promoter signs the contract, delivers the project and claims the money back.
Rural communities
The people and places the projects are for: villages and towns, community organisations, and the users of what the money builds
Audit Chain
Administrative Checks (Pobal, or the LAG's Lead Financial Partner) → DRCDG with its delegated paying-agency functions → DAFM, the accredited Paying Agency, which draws up the annual EAFRD accounts and a management declaration → an independent Certification Body, a professional accountancy firm appointed by DAFM → the European Commission clears the accounts (Reg. (EU) 2021/2116). Alongside, not above: the Comptroller and Auditor General may visit to examine implementation, the European Court of Auditors audits the EU budget, and OLAF investigates suspected fraud. Records are kept until at least 31 December 2036.
Process maps under this programme
Where this came from
Human reviewed2026-09-07Automatically checkedMonitoring pendingCurrent source statusAutomatic baseline required
- 2023–2027 LEADER Programme Operating Rules, version 8 — §3.1 sub-regional areas, §4.3–4.9 bodies and Administrative Checks, §5.5 Evaluation Committee, §14.6 phased payments, §21–22 controls, §23.3–23.5 reviews and appeals — Department of Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht, Circular 09-2024 and later updatesA · Governing source checkedAuto: review needed
- Regulation (EU) 2021/2116 — financing, management and monitoring of the CAP: paying agencies, certification bodies, clearance of accounts — Official Journal of the European UnionA · Governing source checkedAuto: pending
- Corporate Governance Framework — the Department as Ireland’s national accredited Paying Agency for CAP funds; EU accounts audited by an independent certifying body — Department of Agriculture, Food and the MarineB · Official operational guidance checkedAuto: pending
- Appropriation Account 2024, Vote 30 — an independent certifying body, a professional accountancy firm, certifies the annual EAGF and EAFRD accounts — Office of the Comptroller and Auditor GeneralC · Official secondary sourceAuto: pending
Read against the source on 2026-09-07. This is the human-reviewed version.
What that check changed: Checked again on 7 September 2026 against Operating Rules v8, after an independent audit. The €250m was already shown as what it is: €70m transitional for 2021–22 plus €180m for 2023–27. Five things were wrong. The audit chain ran the European Court of Auditors, OLAF and the Comptroller and Auditor General as tiers and had no Certification Body and no Commission clearance — the two steps that actually close a CAP control loop; it now follows the paying-agency route with the national auditors alongside. Pobal was said to run “Article 48” checks on all LAG claims: Article 48 belongs to the repealed 2014–2020 regulation, the current rules simply say Administrative Checks, and in LCDC-led LAGs the Lead Financial Partner checks ordinary project claims — which is who a promoter actually deals with. The LAG count read 29, the figure from the previous programme; the current rules designate 28 sub-regional areas. Project promoters were split into “implementers” and “final beneficiaries”, which is cohesion-fund vocabulary: in LEADER the promoter is the beneficiary, and primary agriculture is not an eligible sector. And the map missed three things that cost people money: the application-stage Administrative Check and the 65% pass mark before a project reaches the LAG, the review and appeal route against a disallowed claim, and phased payments.