Mr. Fintan O'Brien:

Regarding the idea of town centre first plans and project development measures, I agree wholeheartedly that plans must lead to tangible action and investment.

Maybe four or five years ago, there was a bit more of a scattergun approach to how those plans were funded. We have tried to rationalise that through the town centre first plans in order to have one avenue. We also have, and I think this is the funding the Senator is referring to in Bailieborough, this idea of either category one or proto-development measures to get bigger projects ready to hit the ground. What we were seeing across schemes was that an awful lot of the time at the start of projects, they were not quite shovel ready because the investment was not there to get the planning ready and get the permissions ready. It is important to build towards such actions.

One of the things we have done recently is to have a person to drive the process of moving from plans to actions. I have met the town regeneration officer in Cavan quite a few times. Therefore, our support for town teams is feeding into town centre first plans and feeding into actions. Certainly in the last couple of years as we have gone through application processes for, say, town and village regeneration or the RRDF, we have started to see the influence of the focus on planning part. The town regeneration officer is driving really high-quality applications and projects. I understand that quite a bit of money has gone into that. Some of that is that mix of the theory of how this works and the practicality of getting things on the ground in towns. That is the balance we are trying to get to. We have rationalised that approach, but at the core of our thinking is still the idea that planning leads to better applications and better projects that deliver real benefit.

The Senator put her finger on a really important point in relation to the application process in towns and the capacity and skill sets that exist. As we have been going through this consultation process, we have started to look again at what our application forms look like and simple things like that. I was looking at a form for my dad the other day for another part of the Government that was 36 pages. I have been in the Civil Service for a long time, and I could not make head nor tail of it to be quite honest. Therefore, I understand that frustration.

There are certain towns where by happenstance or whatever there is a person with the skill set to take it up and do a very professional application or plan. There are certain ones that do not, and certain towns or communities that possibly do not even know where to start. It is on us, in terms of communication etc., to make that process a little easier. Therefore, we are looking at our application processes and reforms. The town regeneration officers are important in getting out and supporting communities as well. One of the things we are thinking about as a possible emerging action in this new policy is more direct engagement with communities to explain what the schemes are, what they fund and what is required. We hope to put in place a simplified application process and to provide a little more direct help. We have not figured out exactly how to do that yet. It is certainly something that has been coming to us through the consultation process. We have things like funding to help town teams to get themselves started and maybe get a little bit of help. Maybe there is something we can do a little bit more directly.

We keep the elements of various schemes like the painting scheme and the town and village scheme under review year on year. Three or four years back, there was quite a focus on the idea of town painting enhancement in town and village renewal. It was up front and centre, but it has disappeared back into the depths of the scheme as we have prioritised other things in recent years. I have seen great examples of it. When I down to west Clare every summer, I see some unbelievable murals in Milltown Malbay that make the town look great. The Senator is right, however. It is so much more transient than a physical remote working hub or a community centre. We do a review every year of what we are funding. We have not done a front-and-centre painting scheme in a couple of years.

Absolutely, vacancy and dereliction is a massive issue. We have seen this idea of changing priorities again in the town and village renewal scheme in the last two years. We brought a portion of money out of the main scheme - the building acquisition and land acquisition measure - to allow local authorities to buy buildings and plots of land and develop them for strategic purposes. They are required within three or four years of getting that town and village renewal money to come back to us with a proposal on another one of their schemes and say "now that we have purchased this house or building, this is what we are going to do with it". That seems to be quite popular. It seems that there are quite a few sites and things out there - I do not want to call them low-hanging fruit - that local authorities have been eyeing up. That is working quite well. Quite a lot of our schemes will have a focus on strategically important buildings that have fallen out of use, such as a remote working hub in County Mayo. I cannot remember the name of the town, but it was the first project I visited when I joined the Department five years ago. There are lots of examples of banks and post offices. The local authorities have bought Garda stations, old creameries and all kinds of buildings that we are looking at reinvesting in and making real community assets out of them. That will continue to be a core part of what we are trying to do. I imagine it will be a core part of what is going to be in the urban renewal fund, URF, in future as well.