Ms Maria Graham:

I will try to do so. I wrote down something in reply to Senator Boyhan and it would be remiss of me not to say that in all this we have seen huge co-operation from local authorities and chief executives in their engagement. That is important. The point made by the Deputy on the involvement of elected members is one we can take away and look at.

Urban villages are a really interesting concept. There was a book that wrote about Dublin being created of villages. The Town Centre First policy is primarily focused on towns that have their own integrity but it specifically provides that the principles can be applied in cities and to very small villages. Those are the concepts about community knowing what they want the future of their area to look like, the place-making piece. While much of Town Centre First will be focused on enabling the towns, including towns in north Dublin, the URDF covers areas with a population of over 10,000. Therefore, we will include the urban villages.

Earlier Lisa Clifford explained that because we were oversubscribed, we had to look at the core areas, but we will move out. I take on board the point the Deputy made about how prioritisation within an authority might be looked at in that context. We were anxious to get the first lot of projects up and running because that gives us a perspective on how much funding is left and as we go into the latter phases more funding will be available. Those are important points the Deputy has made.

The croí cónaithe towns will be focused on towns and the croí cónaithe cities will be focused on cities. The CPO powers go across the board. There are a range of sources. Some urban development funding will come in from the regional assemblies. Many of these are pathfinders and as they are rolled out, we are very open to identifying gaps in areas that need to be addressed.