Ms Virginia Teehan:

The collaborative town centre health check programme is a very imaginative, collaborative programme that has been very successful. There is a very long waiting list of towns that wish to participate in it. We do not have the means or capacity to serve the needs of all those on the waiting list. I understand that the Town Centre First policy will be published soon and that it is all but complete. I also understand that the collaborative town centre programme has informed that policy very much in its approach. As our chairperson has said, the Heritage Council is very anxious to support the Department in its rolling out of that policy and to transfer the knowledge we have acquired and the lessons we have learned to help with its delivery. The programme is very successful and engages many people on the ground. That is required for success.

As the chairperson said, we are very comfortable in the new Department. It has been very helpful to have closeness with civil servants and other agencies that work in the same area as ourselves. However, we need to work across Departments, particularly the Department responsible for climate action. The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine is another we must work with. We share many common goals. We work very closely with a group called High Nature Value Farming, which is exploring new ways of farming that are less intensive and kinder to the farmland and that are very much reliant on traditional methods of farming. We would like to continue to support its work and engage more with colleagues in the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, particularly at the time of the conclusion of the Common Agricultural Policy discussions.

Equally, we need to work with other public agencies and to not forget our former Department, which is now the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media. We have contact with that Department. Particularly in the area of cultural heritage, we continue to engage with it. We welcome that engagement.