Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Gould. It may be helpful to the Minister of State that this committee is having a series of three meetings, one before Christmas and two after, where we are going to consider the whole area of urban regeneration in villages, towns and cities. Aspects to be addressed will include dereliction, vacancy and other factors that impact this context, such as the Town Centre First policy, transport-orientated development and many other elements that can contribute. I share Deputy Gould's vision for the regeneration of our towns and villages. There is much work that we can do, and Deputy Gould has recommended two expert witnesses to appear before the committee, namely, Frank O’Connor and Jude Sherry. The Deputy has spoken about their work in Cork. After those three or perhaps four meetings, we would hope to produce a report on our findings and recommendations and submit that to the Department for consideration. Those recommendations would be in addition to those factors contained in the Housing for All strategy, which lays out several policy objectives to address the matters raised by Deputy Gould.