We are supporting communities.

We are helping communities realise their ambitions. There has been unprecedented investment in rural Ireland. The Deputy is out of touch to be making those accusations. To be quite honest, he is completely out of touch.

We are listening to people. I will go back and answer the other questions. Pobal assessed every single one of those applications.

Of course we did, because this is what people wanted. I will not-----

This is what communities wanted.

We consult and we talk to people. I listen to the Deputies, hear what is needed on the ground and we develop the support for communities and rural Ireland. There has been unprecedented investment, as I said earlier. We will look at this scheme. We just allocated the funding. We will look at the findings and if we need to make changes or make it better, we are open to listening to people. The Deputy should consult his communities, find out what they need and come back to me. That applies to all the Deputies. I did n…

The Deputy should consult the communities and hear what they want on the ground. This is a bottom-up approach. Like everything we do in the Department of Rural and Community Development, it is bottom-up. It is led by communities and it is supporting and empowering them. We want to continue to do that and deliver for them. I apologise to the Acting Chair.

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. Our Rural Future 2021-2025 is the most ambitious rural development policy for Ireland in decades. It was published in March 2021 and contains more than 150 measures across the whole of Government for both short-term recovery and long-term development. Delivery of the Our Rural Future rural development policy is monitored through a series of work programmes and progress reports. The second progress report was published in August 2022 and covered delivery in the first half …

There has been multimillion euro investment in rural Ireland. Through the RRDF, there has been millions of euro invested in town centre regeneration projects and the conversion of old, derelict buildings into remote working hubs. There has been investment through the town and village streetscape enhancement initiative, which is now looking at repurposing whole buildings. I spoke to local authority chief executives yesterday. They said very clearly that there has been unprecedented investment in rural Ireland and it…

There has been €100 million in investment-----

The Deputy's choice of language is very insulting to rural communities across the country.

No, it is not. The Government policy is working. We have spent more than €100 million on remote working facilities. We have 295 remote working facilities. I was in Donegal-----

I was in a remote working hub in Donegal not too long ago. A person there had returned home from America to live with their family and to work remotely.

I was in Bree, County Wexford, where two people had come back from Australia to live in their community. They are working for Australian companies from a remote working hub supported by funding from my Department.

There are issues in certain areas. We will examine them and deal with them.

I do not have a copy of the report to release, so I cannot give the Deputy an answer on that. What I can tell him-----

-----is that where there are problems, we will address them. When I was Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation, the Border area was way behind every other area, so we developed a Border regional development fund. This is a specific fund for the six counties along the Border and it has worked. Employment in those regions has increased. Where there are issues or difficulties, we will look at them and address them.

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. Earlier this year, my colleague, the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, launched the Croí Cónaithe fund. The fund is initially focused on supporting the refurbishment of vacant homes in regional towns and villages. It is a key funding support under the town centre first policy that was jointly developed by my Department and the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. The publication of Town Centre First was a key del…

The scheme is a really good one. All present know from walking through rural towns and villages that there are derelict houses in them. A bit of encouragement would bring people back to living in the centre of towns and villages. It is welcome that the scheme has been extended to rural houses. I acknowledge that. The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage was committed to the scheme from day one. We had conversations about it and it is very welcome. As regards our engagement with local authorities, we …

The scheme has been rolled out through the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage to the local authorities, which are administering it at a local level. I am not sure of the position with regard to the clawback. It is right that there should be a clawback. I agree with that principle in the context of a person selling a house. The idea is that the person will live in the town. People living in town centres will bring vibrancy to them. I cannot answer the Deputy's question on that aspect, but I will fi…