Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chair. I have a couple of reasonably straightforward questions. I think we all forget that 2022 was a Covid-19 pandemic year, and about the impact there was on capital projects. We kind of wiped the memory banks on that.

I wanted to ask about the walks scheme in particular, and the uptake. Any reaction I am getting from it on the ground is really positive. The landowners are quite happy with how it is working, and they are talking to other landowners and saying if the walks scheme is proposed on their land, it is not a bad idea. It is working out. That is one pocket of the world, and I wonder if the Department finds that kind of positivity across the country. That spend, in my mind, still represents value for money, but I would be interested in the Department's opinion on that.

On the My Open Library project, there was a target of 55 and delivery was reported at 87, but the number in service by the end of 2022 was 30. In my own town of Tramore, we have got a very ambitious one. We are all really looking forward to it, but at the minute the library in Tramore is boarded up. I think we only realised how important it was in the town when the doors closed. I would like a progress update on that.

Then, on a bigger ticket, there is the RRDF and the town and village renewal scheme. We have two fairly landmark policies in the area, the Our Rural Future and town centre first policies. I wonder has there been any difficulty integrating the RRDF and the town and village renewal scheme into that, or is a level of policy coherence making those things add up to more than the sum of their parts? Has it made Mr. Mulherin's life more difficult or easier to see those overarching policies come into position?