Brian Stanley (Laois, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I had to pop in and out of the meeting. Regarding the range of funding, one of the previous speakers mentioned a calendar so that one would know when the scheme opens and closes and that would provide a brief on the scheme. I find that one can get fazed by the whole thing. I know from talking to people in the various towns who are trying to access funding for groups, villages and towns that they find this to be a problem as well. One local authority official told me that it is €30,000 here, €27,000 there and €60,000 somewhere else. It tends to have little impact. It is a bit like the decentralisation scheme in 2003 to which there was a scattergun approach that did not have as much as an impact as it could have had. Perhaps the departmental officials will address that point.

My next question is for Mr. Shanahan. I am familiar with Boyle and was interested in the contribution on that town because if I go to Donegal, I always stop in Boyle. I have noticed in recent years that the town become very dilapidated. Some work is now being done and it is looking a lot better. It is typical of a lot of towns. In the area in which I live in - Laois-Offaly - one could pick out ten towns that have suffered the same fate but Boyle was particularly badly hit. Could Mr. Shanahan address the question of Banagher?A couple of things strike me about it, one of which is the use of the old convent, which he mentioned in his statement. What kind of use could this be put to because I know Mountrath had a similar building? Most of the towns around had a quarter where the schools and religious buildings were located. Many of them are now derelict. What use could they be put to?

Regarding vacant premises, town centres have been hollowed out for a number of reasons. They contain dilapidated buildings that are difficult to bring up to any kind of modern living standards and the bungalow blitz means people live two or three miles out of town and nobody lives in the town centre. The buildings are old and dilapidated, and this is replicated in different towns and counties. In some cases, these buildings have large back gardens. In the case of many of them, should we not just face reality and accept that what is needed is a ball and chain, knock them down, build new streets off the main street and get people living in the town centres? There are signs that this is happening in some towns, though not through any great master plan. It is happening on an ad hocbasis, which is not the best.

Perhaps we would be better off accepting the fact that some of these houses will never be lived in again. I worked in a town that had 21 pubs. Four of them remain and I think a fifth one is struggling. It might come back to life but it might not. Circumstances have changed. People shop differently. There used to be halfway houses such as the pub and the grocery shop, which are now gone. It used to be the case that there was a pub on one side of the building and a grocery shop on the other. Would we be better off in some cases being more radical and saying that what is needed is people housed on the streets because the town centres are deserted? The housing estates in Monasterevin were built in fields almost as if pieces of Lego were dropped from a helicopter. They are all outside the town. This has happened in a range of towns throughout the country.

I agree with Mr. Shanahan that there are many good services on the main street in Banagher with which I am very familiar. There is a fine monument up on the hill to Peter Barnes and James McCormack, which is a lovely feature at the top of the town. Listed buildings come into play when it comes to a ball and chain. We need to recognise reality. I was a county councillor and questioned this several times with regard to our county development plan. It listed buildings where the owner did not have the money to maintain them; where in some cases, we did know who the owner was; or where nothing would ever happen and nobody would ever live in them again. If one drives into any town in the middle of the day, one can see that in many of them, the main streets are deserted. We have to get people living in them to create businesses in them again, and provide childcare facilities. Banagher is lucky, as Mr. Shanahan pointed out. He identified pretty well that it has schools. What about listed buildings and demolition?

Sometimes other factors come in play. An estate in Banagher earmarked for a housing association was mentioned. One of the estates built back in the noughties on the right hand side past Corrigan's pub flooded in recent times. The statement said that the bottom half of the town had the greatest amount of dereliction. That is very pronounced. Is it not the case that some of that relates to flood risk because the bottom of the town is prone to flooding? Are there other reasons apart from dereliction that people are reluctant to go in and spend money in those areas and live in them?