Mr. Kevin McCarthy:

I will take Deputy Sherlock's last question on the planning requirements first. The national planning framework sets out the collective Government objective in respect of that which will inform planning requirements, which, as the Deputy rightly points out, is a matter for the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government. In regard to the attractiveness of residential occupancy in towns and villages, it might be worth mentioning that the Minister for Rural and Community Development last week announced a pilot scheme for town and village residential occupancy in six pilot areas. The intention of that is to support those six communities in the first instance to try to identify solutions and actions that will make their town or village a more attractive place in which to live because we know what the patterns of settlement have been in rural areas.

Towns and villages are emptying out as people live in the wider hinterland. We want to find a way of turning the tide in respect of the attractiveness of living in those settlements. We hope the pilot in those six areas will identify a range of possible innovations or solutions that are locally generated in the first instance but that potentially require action at central level to support them. We are keen to see something emerge from that that can be useful in terms of our policy effort to support town and village residential occupancy.

Regarding the targets for community-owned energy projects, the SEAI has its Better Energy Communities scheme. Deputy Sherlock is probably familiar with it so forgive me if I am going over familiar ground. It is at over 200 and has a target to grow it to 500. We are looking to get into a discussion with it to see how we can support it in achieving that target because we can be helpful to it. Similarly, in respect of the renewable electricity support scheme, RESS, which provides the opportunity for community ownership of renewable projects, we are keen to engage with the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment regarding its plans in order that we can support it in meeting realistic targets around that.

As for Deputy Pringle's question, which Deputy Sherlock has asked in a slightly different way, I will ask my colleague to respond because I attempted an answer earlier and he might give a better answer on the capacity building at community level. Under the LEADER programme, we have project officers in each county who do some of what was described in activating involvement in communities and talking to them about what they have seen work elsewhere. That is a good vehicle for sharing good practice and experience.