Nigel Dodds – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nigel Dodds on 2015-01-14.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many community grant applications have been received from HQ 38 (Irish) Brigade in Northern Ireland; how many such applications were successful; and how much was disbursed in respect of those applications in each year since the inception of that scheme.

Anna Soubry

The first community grant application from HQ 38 (Irish) Brigade was submitted in January 2015. There have been no previous applications submitted because there have been no Community Covenants signed in Northern Ireland.

Despite this, good progress has been made on Covenant issues during 2014 with nearly all of the measures in the Covenant now extending to Northern Ireland. HQ 38 (Irish) Brigade provides a focus for taking Covenant issues forward in the region. The Armed Forces Covenant annual report, laid before the House on 16 December 2014, highlights this progress. I am planning to visit Northern Ireland soon, and I will take the opportunity to see for myself the progress that has been made and its effect on the Armed Forces Community in the Province.

We will continue to engage with the Northern Ireland Executive to ensure that the needs of the Armed Forces community are met.