Community groups in Tipperary encouraged to apply for funding to address literacy needs

The Adult Literacy for Life (ALL) Programme Office, supported by SOLAS, has announced its call for community partners across Tipperary to apply for key funding to address local and national unmet literacy needs through its €1 million national Collaboration and Innovation Fund 2026.

The funding call was officially launched by the Minister of State at the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science Marian Harkin TD in Dublin.

€1 million in funding will enable community partners across Tipperary and Ireland, to access important funding to reach adults with unmet literacy, numeracy, digital and financial literacy needs and to create literacy-friendly communities.

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Over 700,000 people in Ireland have unmet literacy needs. In today’s world, literacy is much more than reading and writing and many people have unmet numeracy, digital and financial literacy needs. This means that daily tasks can be a struggle such as filling in a form, reading instructions on medicines, adding up a bill, helping children with homework or searching online for information.

In Tipperary, the 2025 ALL Collaboration and Innovation funding supported the successful rollout of eleven projects that ranged from how to use Artificial Intelligence to overcome literacy barriers, to cooking on a budget, to supporting their children and their own reading skills.

The Read to Succeed programme is a great example of collaboration between Tipperary Libraries, Tipperary ETB, Ss. Peter & Paul's CBS and Bunscoil na Cathrach.

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Two programmes, one in each of the schools, ran for six weeks each. During this time parents were supported to get to know a brand new book each week. They also learned how to support their children’s reading skills through reading the book together. The children then joined the parents for shared reading and a book-related craft session each week.

Parents and children loved this shared opportunity of bonding with each other through reading. This creative approach took away the fear of reading aloud and brought parents into a welcoming experience in the schools. It also meant that the joy of reading could be experienced at home, as they could keep the books for reading at home.

During each programme, parents and children also went for a visit to their local library to see the wide range of services and free books available on their doorstep.

Ester Mackey, Regional Literacy Coordinator, at Tipperary ETB said:

“In 2025, several successful and transformative projects were delivered across Tipperary, thanks to the ALL Collaboration and Innovation Fund. This funding helped to support learners with unmet literacy needs in Ballina, Clonmel, Cahir, Thurles, Cashel, Nenagh, Templemore, Boher and Tipperary Town. The funding helped support communities and vulnerable adults, and to promote local literacy services. This helps to reduce the stigma around unmet literacy needs.

Through these partnerships, we have been able to reach more people effectively, enabling learners to build confidence with literacy and participate more fully in society. I encourage more partners in Tipperary to work together to create community initiatives that can help reduce the number of people with unmet literacy, digital literacy and numeracy needs.”

Yvonne McKenna, Director of the ALL Programme Office at SOLAS said:

"The ALL Collaboration and Innovation Fund is playing a vital role in working towards ensuring that all adults in Ireland have the literacy to meet their needs. The projects that the Fund supports have a real impact in making Tipperary region a more literacy-aware and literacy-friendly place.

The Fund enables the delivery of a vibrant and diverse range of programmes that are helping to change the lives of adults with unmet literacy needs in Ireland. The fund is aimed at those most at risk of having literacy needs including older adults, members of the Traveller community, migrants, people parenting alone, and early school leavers."

For More Information

Further information on the Fund and how to apply is available at https://www.adultliteracyforlife.ie/fund/

The closing date for the fund is 12pm on Thursday 22 January 2026