The amount of funding available for rural development projects in NI has reduced drastically since Brexit, a committee of MLAs has been told.

“The old Rural Development Programme invested about £80m a year. Last year it was around £3m and […] this year it should be up to around £6m,” said Nicholas McCrickard from the Rural Community Network.

Addressing Stormont’s agriculture committee last Thursday, McCrickard said NI was “falling behind” the rest of the UK and Ireland with rural development projects.

Some rural schemes are available in NI, including the Rural Business Development Grant Scheme, which allows 50% grant aid for businesses to purchase capital equipment.

Likewise, DAERA’s Rural Micro Capital Grant Scheme allows grants of up to £2,000 for voluntary organisations.

However, at the meeting in CAFRE’s Loughry Campus near Cookstown, MLAs were told that “bureaucracy” is the key problem with the existing rural schemes in NI.

“There is so much going backwards and forwards. There has to be some way to make it easier for these groups.

“We are the ones in the middle, so we get the crux of the queries and blame,” said Mary T Conway from the Omagh Forum for Rural Associations.