Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their presentations. I had the pleasure of meeting Free Market in Castleblayney. I am really blown away with the research the witnesses have presented here today because that is the foundation of something really great for this island, not just one town. If we were to implement some of the recommendations made by the witnesses, it would have significant potential. Perhaps this is the place where this starts and we can see something like this rolled out. I think it would be well worth our while looking at the Scottish model. I agree with everything said by Ms Delaney. We see right across the board here volunteers in towns exhausted and exasperated from going after funding and doing the same thing over and over again whereas we could have an organisation like the one mentioned by the witnesses. What Castleblayney is doing is working wonderfully. People in a town in Cork, Waterford or somewhere else that has the same profile and population could replicate what Castleblayney has done instead of exhausting themselves trying to start from scratch. We now have the research saying that this will work. I really appreciate what the witnesses have done.

I thank everybody from Cappoquin Community Development, Clarecastle Community Development and, obviously, Castleblayney Regeneration Committee for coming here today. I do not think the Chairman will mind if I congratulate Ms Annmarie McHugh, the chairperson of Castleblayney Regeneration Committee, and Mr. Gareth McMahon. Without being biased, I can say that they do phenomenal work in a Border town that has every sort of challenge set against it. There is no doubt that towns across the Border region have an extra set of challenges that do not necessarily present in other towns. They do phenomenal work. It involves embracing all the community groups in the town to ensure they are involved in the work being done.

Senator Dolan spoke about access, disability and working with various community groups. I know this is something Ms McHugh is very mindful of. I have seen it on the ground in Castleblayney, on which she should be complimented. I also compliment Monaghan County Council. Senator Coffey spoke about local authorities. Local authorities can come in for significant criticism for various things, but I know from my work as a Deputy in the area that Monaghan County Council is very responsive and is out there on the ground working with community groups like that of Ms McHugh, which is to be applauded because it does not happen everywhere.

I concur with everything said here today. I am very relieved because it is something I have passionately believed for the past ten years. In a former life, I ran an independent arts base in Bailieborough in County Cavan. I will never forget how, ten years ago, an application came into Cavan County Council for a branch of Tesco. I watched a lot of editions of "Dispatches" and did many studies in the National College of Art and Design, NCAD. The real difficulty for me was the impact of these huge corporate buildings, although I do not know if one could call them buildings because they should be called sheds in many cases, on small towns like Bailieborough. It is so important.

The crux of maintaining and growing the integrity of main streets is planning. It involves making sure that whoever is coming to town, be it a school, a branch of Tesco or SuperValu, and our SuperValu is on the main street, the main street is key. All of them should be forced to have an open door for footfall so that pedestrians can access the building on a main street. We are talking about people being pushed out to greenfield sites because parking attendants are going around and there is insufficient parking in the first place. How would any main street survive that? This compromises the integrity of our main streets, which has been happening for the past ten or 15 years.

I also think that real consideration should be given to the type of buildings that are put into these places. We have seen massive companies coming into town, and because they have a certain name, they are allowed to do what they want and can literally build a shed with one glass facade. They can build a monstrosity of a building that sucks the life out of every other business on the main street. All of the other business people must consider their shopfronts, facades, whether a building is listed, what it is beside, and that the same rules should apply to everybody. We must be serious about pulling all these buildings into the core of our towns. Instead of these corporate companies coming along and forcing their model on local authorities, local authorities should take command of this and tell the companies what they expect for their towns and that companies will abide by their rules rather than local authorities following the companies' rules. I feel very passionate about that, so much so that I curated an exhibition many moons ago on the theme of place, displace and replace because I really felt that these greenfield sites were displacing businesses and people and taking people off our main streets.

What the witnesses have presented here today is certainly the reverse of all that. Much of what they have said is to be very much welcomed. I take my hat off to the witnesses for everything they do because it involves volunteerism and takes significant energy and enthusiasm and they need the support of their local authorities. We will do anything we can do as a committee to support that work. There is great value in what the witnesses have presented here today to feed into the work people in our towns throughout the country are trying to do. We will not be found wanting in doing our bit at an Oireachtas committee level.