How ERDF reaches a local authority project
This is the same money as the ERDF entry, seen from a council’s side of the table. Ireland runs ERDF as two regional programmes, not one national scheme, and the Regional Assemblies are the Managing Authorities. Councils receive ERDF mainly through the town and urban priorities — schemes such as THRIVE, Decarbonising Zones, Warmer Homes and social housing renovation — while the research and innovation priority runs through Enterprise Ireland, Research Ireland and the HEA. Which programme you sit in is decided by geography, and it sets how much of the money behind your call is EU money — not what your council must contribute, which the call sets.
ERDF — via a local authority schemeReg. (EU) 2021/1058 · CPR Reg. (EU) 2021/1060Set by the scheme and your grant agreement — the two regional ERDF programmes behind it total €880.8m (€395.7m from the EU); see the ERDF entry
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 REGIO
Approves both regional programmes and clears the accounts. EU contribution across the two: €395.7m of the €880.8m total; the rest is Government of Ireland money.
Managing Authorities — Northern & Western Regional Assembly · Southern Regional Assembly
Northern & Western: €217.1m, a transition region, so the EU pays 60% of the programme. Southern, Eastern & Midland: €663.7m, two more developed regions, so the EU pays 40%. The Eastern & Midland Regional Assembly is not a Managing Authority — its region sits inside the Southern Assembly’s programme.
Scheme owner — the Assembly, or an Intermediate Body
For town and urban schemes the Assembly runs the call itself. Under the research and innovation priority the calls are delegated to Enterprise Ireland, Research Ireland or the Higher Education Authority. The body that published your call is the body that assesses it, signs with you and verifies your claims.
👉 Your organisation sits at this level
Your local authority — the beneficiary on the grant agreement
Signs the agreement, procures the works under national and EU procurement law, spends first and claims after, and keeps the file. Procurement is the commonest reason money is taken back — usually a threshold read wrong or a file that cannot be reconstructed.
The town and the people who use what is built
Residents of the regenerated street, users of the retrofitted building, the community the facility serves. In CPR language the beneficiary is the council; these are the people the money is for.
Audit Chain
Built upward from the council’s own file. Your invoices, proof of payment and procurement records → management verifications by the Assembly or the Intermediate Body, administrative on every claim and on the spot for a sample (CPR Art. 74), finished before the annual accounts go to the Commission → the ERDF Audit Authority, the Internal & EU Audit Unit of the Department of Public Expenditure, audits systems, operations and accounts independently (Art. 77) → the European Commission accepts the accounts. Alongside, not above: the Local Government Audit Service audits the Regional Assemblies and your own council, the Comptroller and Auditor General audits the Department and the state-body Intermediate Bodies, the European Court of Auditors audits the EU budget, and OLAF investigates suspected fraud.
Process maps under this programme
Where this came from
Human reviewed2026-09-08Automatically checkedMonitoring pendingCurrent source statusAutomatic baseline required
- Regulation (EU) 2021/1060 (Common Provisions Regulation) — Art. 71 programme authorities, Art. 74 management verifications, Art. 77 audit authority, Art. 112 co-financing rates — Official Journal of the European UnionA · Governing source checkedAuto: review needed
- Northern and Western Regional Programme 2021-2027 — programme record: EU €130,238,539 of €217,064,232 — European Commission, DG REGIOA · Governing source checkedAuto: pending
- Southern, Eastern and Midland Regional Programme 2021–2027 — programme record: EU €265,477,482 of €663,693,712 — European Commission, DG REGIOA · Governing source checkedAuto: pending
- Northern and Western Regional Programme — schemes, including the town, housing and decarbonisation measures a local authority applies to — Northern and Western Regional AssemblyB · Official operational guidance checkedAuto: pending
Read against the source on 2026-09-08. This is the human-reviewed version.
What that check changed: This entry never received the ERDF rebuild of 7 September and still carried what that rebuild removed. Its Managing Authority was “Ireland — varies by OP”, which is not an answer: Ireland runs ERDF as two regional programmes and the Regional Assemblies are the Managing Authorities. Its audit chain ran downward from the European Court of Auditors instead of upward from the council’s own file, and it left out the Local Government Audit Service, which is the body that actually audits both the Regional Assemblies and the council itself. Rewritten on 8 September to match the corrected ERDF entry, with the money from the Commission’s own programme records: €880.8m across the two programmes, €395.7m from the EU. The co-financing note now says what a rate is — the split between EU and Exchequer money inside the programme — rather than implying the council must find that share.