Mr. Cormac Kennedy:

The way I see it, driving jobs in town centres is simple - more retailers and commercial premises will drive it. The way one must approach things in a town centre is no different from the way one would approach them in a shopping centre such as the one in Dundrum. A shopping centre would have a marketing manager and a facilities manager to run the premises, taking charge of the lettings, landscaping, security, cleaning and so forth. One particular person would lead the charge. Towns need to adopt the same practices and procedures. They need to assess their cleanliness regimes. They also need to analyse their tenant mix to determine if there are gaps and then target potential tenants to fill the gaps and make a difference. Hospitality is a key area of advantage for towns. Typically people would prefer to go to a town centre for hospitality and leisure activities rather than to a shopping centre. This is true of both night-time and daytime trade. In order for all of this to work, one needs professionals to manage it. Towns need a town management academy which will train people in managing town centres, similar to the way shopping centre managers are trained to manage shopping centres. If we do those simple things, they could make an enormous difference in terms of driving jobs and revenue back into town centres.