Ms Alison Harvey:

To respond to the Deputy's points, a Dutch delegation came to Dundalk in 2019 and we were talking about vacancy rates. The Dutch are talking about consolidating their town centres, that is, making them strong and shrinking the amount of zoning on the edge to push activity back into the town centres. At that stage, we were talking about small town vacancy rates of 24% for ground floor retail while the Dutch were at 6.8%. We were listening very intently to what they were telling us about what they are doing. The Netherlands is very strong on what to do with small town centres.

We have published research on meanwhile use. This aims to show the steps that can be used to get out of dereliction and vacancy. You really want to establish your baselines at the very start. That is very important for public spend as it allows you to show the impact and the outcomes.