Malcolm Noonan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Yes, absolutely. He was a real visionary for the town. What has happened in Dundalk is an exemplar that should be replicated in mid-sized towns across the country. The URDF and the myriad schemes the Government has brought forward over the past couple of years are critically important. They have added to the coherence and vibrancy of towns. They have increased the opportunities around mobility, as the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell, said, through cycling and walking. I always use the term "funkiness", and the importance of bringing a bit of funkiness back into our towns which means that people will want to live in them. We want families to want to live in them because there is good thermal comfort in the older buildings and there is a healthy night-time as well as day-time economy and vibrancy. That is something we have tried to do across various Departments. The Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Deputy Catherine Martin, has been working on the night-time economy. The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage has tried to support her in that work by looking at the vibrancy and trying to get people to fall in love with our towns again. We turned our backs on our towns in previous years but what we have managed to do with the URDF, which will continue through the next rounds of funding and through the other schemes we have introduced, is to get down to the fine grain of the fabric of buildings, colour schemes and so on, to look at the public realm, landscaping, nature-based solutions and so on. All of these can add to a real vibrancy in our towns and Dundalk is a fantastic example of that.