Ms AnnMarie Farrelly:

I thank the Deputy. I will come in quickly on the town centre approach and how we might reinvent some of our town centres. Certainly the town centres first initiative coming from Government is something on which we are working very closely with it. It is about living and working in town centres. The remote working opportunities may help reinvigorate some town centres and bring back more employment. Local authorities are looking at that quite closely. There is no doubt we need to work with all the stakeholders in towns. The principle of town teams is well accepted by ourselves and is in place in many towns across the country. I take the Deputy's point on dereliction. A combination of penalisation and incentives will get more activity into our town centres. We are worried about retail. However, some towns which are remote from city areas have done quite well during Covid and some of those areas have reinvented themselves. This has not perhaps been the case with city centres across the country. I will allow my colleagues from Limerick and Dublin city to come in on that. On remote working, I mentioned the 400 digital hubs already established and the need for more. It is not necessarily a rural issue alone. The likes of the towns in north County Dublin would benefit greatly from remote working hubs. Those towns have thrived somewhat during Covid as more people lived and worked in their local time as they were working from home. I would like to capture some of that benefit and ensure we can keep it into the future.

There is no doubt housing was delayed by the Covid restrictions earlier this year. We are doing everything we can to get that impetus going again and it certainly started off quite quickly when the restrictions lifted. We are all working to an agenda of activating more sites and getting more construction on the ground. It is going to be a challenging year but we are all working to the one agenda and driving through progress where we can. On the current rates waiver, I can only give the Fingal County Council experience but 40% of businesses benefit from the rates waiver at the moment in Fingal, so we are working quite closely with the other 60% on where they stand this year and whether they are in a position to pay the rates liability due. The communication is open and as we work very closely with businesses and try to address any challenges they face, that communication is already established.

I will hand over to Mr. Shakespeare and Mr. Daly to address the city centre issue.