Sarah O'Reilly (Aontú)

I thank Mr. O'Brien for the presentation. I want to give an example of my town. I am from Bailieborough in County Cavan. We got the great news at the beginning of October that we were getting €792,000 for an extensive town centre plan. This is great and brilliant, but the people are not all that excited because, in 2023, we got up to €100,000 for a town centre plan and, in 2016, we had approximately €30,000 for a town centre plan. The people see we have three plans and not much has come out of them. In many rural town centres there is a big problem with derelict buildings, derelict sites and sites belonging to people who are in England or away and nobody can get anybody to do anything with them. They are a huge eyesore and a blight on the towns.

There is a feeling that money could be used better. The taxpayer does not see they are getting value for money from all these plans. They see consultants, that there is public consultation and that things go out all the time for public consultation, but there is no move on from the plans. They see surveys and architects and all these people benefiting, but the plans seem to sit there and there is nobody there to drive them on and put action into them. I see this as a huge problem. We all welcome it but there is actually no excitement about €792,000 because it is for another extensive plan. I have a concern about all of the plans that are sitting there, which have all gone to public consultation and nothing is driving many of them on. I know there is a plan to drive on this plan - I hope - but this is a concern I have.

I am on this committee and I had no idea that announcement was going to be made. It would have been nice if we had even received an email about it when it was announced. That is another thing.

The town and village renewal scheme is good and most of the towns and villages in my area have all benefited from it, but the application process is very difficult for ordinary volunteer development groups. This needs to be addressed. You nearly have to be a professional and most groups have to nearly employ somebody to fill out the forms. This is stopping people from applying for these schemes. I know there have to be strict rules for governance in these schemes but many voluntary groups are not able to go through with the schemes as they would have to be professionals.

Some of the schemes are used as painting schemes. We see loads of murals and loads of lovely painted buildings in towns. They are beautiful for a year or two and then the paint starts flaking off. Perhaps we could have something more substantial with the money. As I have said, many town centres have derelict buildings. Perhaps that money could be used by the local authority to compulsorily purchase, CPO, or buy a site that is an eyesore, derisk it and sell it on. That was an idea that might have been piloted, and it was a really good idea, but I have not heard of it since. Perhaps it is still in operation. The painting schemes are grand for a while but it is papering over the cracks.