Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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This brings us back to Deputy McGrath's amendment and whether this scheme should apply to Bray, County Wicklow. It is certainly not ruled out but one has to remember, as Deputy McGrath rightly pointed out, that it is two years since this scheme was initiated and we still have not got EU state aid approval over the line. We are inserting a limit to the relief in the Bill and I hope this will be an important step in getting over this hurdle. Let us walk before we run and let us see how the scheme works. We can have that conversation.

The Government is being cautious. We are targeting the scheme at cities. There is a logic to that but equally one could argue the logic for islands. I can see the argument that one could make in that respect. This is a targeted initiative in terms of trying to get life back into parts of cities. That is an important point. The potential unintended consequence that we would have been concerned about from Deputy McGrath's amendment is that we do not want to do up all parts of the cities. Many parts of some cities are doing very well but there are elements of our cities that suffer from dereliction, a dwindling population and often have little or no life in them. The scheme is targeted at those areas. Should it work there is no reason that it cannot be looked at in regard to other locations.