Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There is a variety of different uses. For instance, in Kilgarvan, in County Kerry, through Kerry County Council it is being used for their community council. They will obviously look to have rooms as well that will be used for other agencies. In Roscommon, for example, a visitor centre centred on John McGahern was put into an old Garda station from an old OPW property. The uses are varied.

There are opportunities to get funding now, either through the Minister for Rural and Community Development, Deputy Humphreys, LEADER or local authorities, or in some cases the communities themselves. There is a lot of capital work. Some of these buildings are listed buildings. They have sash windows, old fireplaces or lime render. You name it and they have it. In some cases, the communities look at them and say that it is too challenging for them. In other places, if they put forward, for instance, an application through town and village renewal or rural recreation, they can form part of the local amenities. In some cases, they have been incorporated into towpaths on the canals and greenways. There is no exhaustive list. Anything will be considered once we find a situation where we do not believe that the community will be left with a millstone around their neck that they cannot pay for into the future because then the property would wind up coming back to us. Ordinarily, these would be in long-term fixed leases, supplemented and supported by the local authority. I have been insisting on that from the start because I do not want a small rural communities landed with a property and the local authority walking away stating that it has no responsibility there. If there are particular examples in Deputy Mairéad Farrell's area or in some parts of the country that the Deputy would like us to follow-up with, we certainly will because we have a catalogue of where every one of them is at present.