Regeneration Projects Seanad Éireann — 2026-02-04 ============================================================ Robbie Gallagher (FF), Labour Panel Cuirim fáilte mhór roimh an Aire go dtí an Teach. Gabhaim buíochas leis mar tá a fhios agam go bhfuil sé an-ghnóthach agus faoi bhrú. The Minister is very welcome. I thank him for taking time out of his busy schedule to be here. He has a lot going on and I appreciate his time in the Chamber. The rural regeneration and development fund, RRDF, is a capital investment fund that has been hugely successful. It has transformed many towns and villages the length and breadth of the country, including in counties Cavan and Monaghan, which I represent. Fortunately, we have experience of the fund and the success and new life it has breathed into many towns and villages. Indeed, there are many projects ongoing there, the progress of which I am regularly in contact with the Minister and his good staff to discuss. I thank him and his staff for their engagement on those matters. Today, the particular project I raise is in Kingscourt, County Cavan. As the Minister knows, Kingscourt has a population of approximately 3,000 people. It is a thriving business town and a very friendly place. It has a great mix of local businesses, many of them very well known, including Gyproc, Kingspan Group, O'Reilly Precast and Paramount Doors, to name but a few. There is also a strong retail mix in the town. It has a brand new school, Coláiste Dún an Rí, with more than 700 students. It is home to Cabra Castle Hotel, which is one of the leading wedding venues in the country, as well as Dún a Rí Forest Park and the greenway stretching along the disused railway line to Nobber and Navan. In 2024, the people of Kingscourt were delighted when a funding allocation of €10.4 million was received for a regeneration project in the town centre. This was to increase the civic space within the town core, making provision for new off-street car parking, a new library and a brand new working hub with meeting spaces. This will transform the physical, economic and social landscape of Kingscourt and, as I said, residents are hugely excited about it. I commend Cavan County Council and, indeed, the local community. People have worked together, along with the officials in the Minister's Department, to progress the project. I welcome that the project has now received full planning permission to proceed. I recognise that there are a number of procedures and stages to go through. We are progressing those quickly to get to a point where there is some activity on site. I am delighted the Minister is here to give me and the good people of Kingscourt an update as to when this long-awaited project will commence. Without meaning to put pressure on him, they are all looking forward to his answer. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-02-04/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:35+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-02-04