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

The funding allocated to urban regeneration projects follows the commitment in the programme for Government. My working group has had numerous meetings over the past year and before on the changes we need to make to get this money spent. The scheme is not finalised because the money was only allocated in the budget. We had not secured it until the weeks before the Budget Statement. It is something we have been seeking for a while and it has now been secured. In conjunction with local authorities, we will now make decisions on how it will be rolled out. It is about trying to achieve an impact in key areas. We envisage local authorities picking the key areas and bringing them forward in order that resources can be focused across numerous Departments to achieve real urban regeneration. To clarify, the funding is not specifically for housing. I think the Deputy will agree with that. However, it will tap into other housing schemes and in some cases bring back housing units. The Deputy had a Bill here himself on other buildings where he wants to see a change of use. Part of this will be to encourage that and bring buildings back into use in key areas in towns.

There is great potential in the repair and leasing scheme. We have changes to announce around that but the Deputy does not want us to keep announcing things. As such, we cannot really announce it here tonight. Changes will be brought forward to improve the scheme. I have repeatedly asked the Deputy, his colleagues and their party councillors to help drive this scheme which has great potential nationally. There have been more than 550 applications and people have expressed an interest in the scheme. While very few applications have been completed, there is a lot of interest and the scheme has great potential. I ask the Deputy and his colleagues to help us promote it.

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