Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There are two aspects to this. The first is bringing vacant and derelict buildings back into use. I am glad to hear there are not many in Corofin but the Deputy will know as well as I do that there are many towns and villages in Ireland where there is a lot of dereliction. Our first priority has to be town centres and village centres first and bringing those vacant buildings back to life. We are offering people grants to do that. We have also given local authorities a CPO fund - rather, a purchase fund - of €150 million, which they can use to buy buildings and bring them back into use. The other area that is important is allowing for a certain amount of natural increase for any town or village. We want to avoid urban sprawl and unnecessary commuting but every town and village should be able to have a certain level of natural increase, particularly for people who come from the area who want to move back or people who want to stay in the area in which they grew up. That is what this €50 million fund is all about. The Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, has said to me that he will be able to make the allocations before the end of the year. Let us see how that goes. If it works well, there is no reason we could not add to that €50 million fund down the line. That will obviously be part of the national development plan review in a few months' time.

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