The town centre first policy is a major cross-government policy that recognises vacancy and dereliction are still a challenge in many rural towns and villages. It seeks to breathe new life into our town centres, supporting the Our Rural Future vision for a thriving rural Ireland. Central to town centre first is the range of support funding, including my Department’s rural regeneration and development fund, RRDF, and the town and village renewal scheme. In 2023, the town and village renewal scheme placed a particula…

We have appointed town regeneration officers in every county. They will engage with communities and with landowners who have derelict properties nothing is happening to. The Deputy and I know well that there is a myriad of reasons that properties are left derelict. I often go into a town and ask why on earth no one is living in those houses. However, there is probably a story behind it. It is quite complex and is often to do with inheritance. A load of things are happening. However, a lot of work is being done on i…

I thank the Deputy. There is co-ordination and it is being done through the town regeneration officers. It is their job to work together through the local authority and to identify funding schemes. Offaly has not been doing too badly. I remember being up in the supermarket I visited in Edenderry and €12.25 million was provided for that. That is a wonderful project. I visited it myself. It is an old supermarket and has been transformed. Indeed, other funding was provided there are for different initiatives. I have b…

I thank Deputy Connolly for raising this issue. As she is aware, the land on which the Inishbofin airstrip is located is currently owned by Galway County Council. These lands were acquired by way of a compulsory purchase order, CPO, by Galway County Council on behalf of the Department. Part of the site is intended for use by the HSE for a primary care centre. The transfer of these lands to my Department has been an ongoing process for a number of years and I appreciate the Deputy’s frustration with the prolonged na…

I am glad that the Deputy put in the questions because I think if she or I were doing this, we would have it done more quickly, to be honest with the Deputy. When I started looking at this, it had been going on since 9 September 2003. That is when the Department requested Galway County Council to purchase the land. This went through a CPO process. I will not go into it but the Deputy knows the story better than I do. My goodness me, it is taking a long time. As a Department, we are engaging regularly with Galway Co…

I thank the Deputy. There is no doubt about it but that we need the primary care centre on the island. My Department intends to transfer a section of the land to the HSE and we have given the Deputy a timeframe on that. I will ask my officials to respond to the Deputy with an answer on the design team as I do not have that to hand and I will not give the Deputy wrong information. I know that we are engaging with them. I would love to be moving things along more quickly but they do not always go as quickly as she an…

I propose to take Questions Nos. 39 , 41 and 46 together. My Department's CLÁR scheme is a targeted investment programme that provides funding for small-scale infrastructural projects in rural areas that experience disadvantage and significant levels of depopulation. This scheme has gone from strength to strength in recent years. Under the 2023 scheme, I approved over €13 million for 303 projects. This is the largest allocation under the scheme since it was reintroduced in 2016. The 2024 CLÁR programme was launched…

The CLÁR scheme works extremely well. It depends on how much of one's country is allocated in CLÁR as well. We can compare one set of figures with different county sizes. I appreciate Cork is a big county. The number of projects approved in Cork since 2016 was 130 and they got funding of €4.184 million. I do not have the map of what areas in Cork are designated as CLÁR but some counties have a lot more CLÁR areas because they had a great deal more population decline. That is why they have a bigger CLÁR area. It dep…

People get caught up on certain schemes. Substantial funding is also being provided to County Cork under a range of other schemes operated by my Department. Since 2020, €5.7 million has gone to Cork under the town and village scheme, and €32.3 million has been allocated to Cork under the rural regeneration scheme in the same period. Cork was allocated €3.4 million in 2023 and €3.2 million in 2024 under the community recognition fund; €4.7 million has been allocated to 96 refurbishment projects in Cork under the com…

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter again. As the Deputy is aware, Galway County Council is the responsible authority for the maintenance and development of pier infrastructure on the Aran Islands, including on Inis Oírr and Inis Meáin. There are regular meetings between officials from my Department and Galway County Council to discuss and monitor the pier development on both these islands. The last meeting was held earlier this week on Tuesday, 18 June, and the next meeting is scheduled for 16 July. The Dep…

I visited the pier at Caladh Mór and saw the issues there. People tried to fix it years ago but trying to find the right solution has been difficult. We have gone through a long process. I am happy to try to do what I can on my side but Galway County Council also has a responsibility. My officials and Galway County Council officials continue to liaise and meet regularly on this matter. Both sets of officials are cognisant of the concerns of the residents of Inis Meáin. My Department has given the go-ahead to the co…

Regarding Inis Oírr, in July I gave approval to issue a request for tender. The first stage has been completed. Stage 2 of the tender process was posted on 8 April. The closing date for receipt of all documentation is set for 12 July. However, Galway County Council has advised my Department that a four-week extension has been given, meaning the new date is 9 August. The assessment of the tenders, when received, should take approximately two months. I am very keen to have this completed so that we will be in a posit…

As the Deputy will be aware, the RRDF is a strategic capital investment fund that is key to the delivery of Ireland's rural development policy, Our Rural Future. The Youghal public library project was awarded funding of just over €4 million under the third call for category 1 proposals to the fund in 2021. The project will renovate and extend derelict buildings and a site on Youghal's North Main Street to provide a new library and revitalised streetscape. Since the funding was approved in 2021, the condition of the…

When I allocate money to projects, the one thing I want to see is that it is spent. We engage regularly with the local authorities. I have to be honest here; some local authorities are excellent at getting funding, drawing it down and delivering projects and some are not quite as efficient with that process. We speak to local authorities regularly. I will tell any Deputies here who know of projects that are not moving on in their local authority areas that it is not because we are not giving them the money but beca…

I agree with the Deputy that sometimes when projects are delayed the cost increases. There is no doubt about that. We look at them and if there are genuine reasons and it can be shown the costs have increased, we help out because we want to see these projects delivered. They are very important. The Youghal project is a public library and we know how important public libraries are. I have been to the one in Kinsale. It is a fabulous library. It has been delivered and is open and working. It is a great job. It is exp…

That is an awful lot of questions missed.

I am running out of answers here, but I will have one for the Deputy.

I propose to take Questions Nos. 52 and 62 together. My Department operates a range of programmes and schemes that support and assist urban and rural community groups throughout the country. The range of targeted investments and supports offered by my Department fund a wide range of initiatives that help promote rural regeneration, town and village regeneration, outdoor recreation, regional enterprise growth and social inclusion. Capital schemes including the town and village renewal scheme, LEADER, the rural regen…

I thank the Deputy. We have the community recognition fund. It is a fund responding to help communities that have taken in a lot of immigrants. They have facilitated them and worked well with them. I was delighted phase 2 of the Newbridge Family Resource Centre extension of the community building got €440,000 in 2023. Kildare has been allocated €830,000, which brings the total funding under the fund to more than €1.6 million. That is an important fund. It is a rolling fund, so it is important applications are got i…

The Deputy is absolutely right that there are many fantastic communities out there. I have been to Lisdoonvarna, which is a great example of where a community came together and assisted many Ukrainian refugees who came there. I was down there recently and it is a wonderful success story. They were able to tap into the community recognition fund, develop their pitches and sporting facilities and do different things, the same as in the Deputy's constituency. There is loads of good work going on under the radar. Unfor…