Mr. Niall Cussen:

On what is coming down the track and the degree of acceptance among councillors, we have had huge participation in the training we have organised. There have often been up to 200 members tuning in on webinars and staying for the duration of the two hours or two and a half hours. There is certainly an appetite out there. It is an appetite that one can find articulated more among the urban members and younger members, that is, some of the newer entrants into the ranks of local government members. There are 949 councillors and in the last local election in 2019, there was a turnover of just over a third. There is a section among the members which is still coming to grips with this and trying to work through its implications. I am strongly of the view, however, that the continued rolling out of our training programme, as well as that of the climate action regional offices, which is under way at present, is crucial in reaching out to each and every member. The last analysis by the Association of Irish Local Government, which represents councillors across the country, showed that in some local authority chambers, there is participation by up to 80% of members in at least one of our training sessions. These are positive indicators of the level of engagement but we have a lot of progress to make, particularly in respect of understanding some of the practical issues the Senator raised. That sense of a lack of willingness by local authorities to tackle dereliction goes to the very heart of the matter. There is criticism of the slow pace of progress in the housing capital programme but when one looks more closely at some of the questions which the parent Department often asks of local authorities about why they are progressing in a particular way, it can be because the Department is raising the very point the Senator has raised. Sometimes, the questions that come down from the centre to the local authorities, as a means to perhaps try a bit harder, are sometimes taken as criticism of the four-stage housing programme. However, there are some local authorities which are very proactive in this space. Members should consider Monaghan County Council and the Dublin Street regeneration in Monaghan town. That is a local authority that really has started to look much more assertively at how it can itself be an agent of regeneration and renewal in its towns. That is something about which our reviews programme will examine and disseminate a broader awareness across the sector. The Senator also raised an important point about quality of life and what the villages and towns of the future could and should look like. Some of the media pieces we sponsored are trying to highlight that. We will do more work on that and I will be very happy to follow up with the committee on this.