Seventy-one projects around the State will receive funding to enhance the level of understanding of new technologies by disadvantaged or isolated communities. The Minister for Public Enterprise Ms O'Rourke announced the successful groups, which will benefit from the £4 million (#5.08 million) initiative, at the Hodson Bay Hotel in Athlone, Co Westmeath yesterday. The main focus of the scheme is to open the world of new technology and information systems to those in society who are unfamiliar with new technologies, she said.

The 71 projects, chosen out of 450 proposals as part of the Community Application of Information Technology initiative to remove the "digital divide" from Irish society, will begin in July and run until December 2002. The Minister said the funding was increased from an initial £2.5 million. Groups receiving funding ranged from those with learning difficulties, Travellers, prison inmates, people on the islands, the rurally isolated, senior citizens and early school leavers.