Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I agree with Deputy Durkan that we, as a planning Department, must do all we can to make this happen. If we can help in any way with planning queries or other issues surrounding this matter, and if Kildare County Council seeks our help in that regard, we will be able to engage with the council. There is no problem whatsoever facilitating a meeting if needs be. If there are any planning or interpretive planning issues, our planning team, headed by Niall Cousins, is there to be able to deal with them. We can engage if we can help with that at all. Wearing my urban regeneration hat, I can say we want to see buildings such as this one which have been lying idle for a long number of years brought back into use as this enhances the town overall. If we can help under that heading, we will. While we cannot get involved in site-specific issues surrounding the planning and the legalities of the matter and so on, there is absolutely no doubt but that where we can help, the door is open to try to do so as best as we possibly can. We will have more meetings with Kildare County Council on general housing issues and other issues. As at previous meetings, I will raise this issue with the council for discussion. I know from talking to Kildare County Council that it also wants this resolved. Its staff look out the windows of their office and can see the site most days so I think they understand the importance of it and want to have it developed as well. I hope that will happen quite quickly.

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