981. Deputy John Paul O'Shea asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the reason a Social Farming Programme (details supplied) has not received funding in the recent allocation of funding. [64646/26]

Social farming is the practice of offering, on a voluntary basis, farming and horticultural participation in a farming environment as a choice to people who avail of a range of therapeutic day support services.

These operations are run in a number of settings ranging from working family farms, local community initiatives through to more institutional frameworks.

The named organisation have previously been funded by this Department under the Rural Innovation and Development Fund (RIDF) model projects programme from 2021 to June 2026.

In March of this year my Department issued a new call for tenders under a competitive public procurement procedure through the 2026 Rural Innovation and Development Fund (RIDF). The call went out seeking service providers with the vision and capability to develop a substantial social farming model project.

There were six applicants for this funding and each of the submitted tenders were evaluated under the criteria set out in the call.

The named organisation were unsuccessful in their submission for funding. They received notification of their result along with the score obtained by their tender and the score obtained by the successful tenderers in respect of each of the award criteria. They were also provided with the characteristics and relative advantages of the successful tenderer as compared with their tender (where applicable).