Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The year 2018 is very special for the SuperValu Tidy Towns Competition as it marks the 60th anniversary of what has been a very successful Government initiative. The work done by the Tidy Towns committees down through the years has played an important part in the improvement of the appearance of villages, towns and cities around the country.

To assist committees to mark the 60th anniversary, I allocated funding of €1.4 million to Tidy Towns committees at the end of last year to help them prepare for the 2018 competition. I am delighted that more than 900 of the committees availed of the funding.

Officials in my Department also carried out a nationwide consultation process with Tidy Towns committees last year in order to revise and update the competition. As a result of this process, a number of changes were implemented to simplify the application process. Other changes aimed at improving the competition will follow in due course.

This year’s competition was launched on 28 March and includes a number of new special awards categories, including a schools award and an architectural award. A number of other initiatives to make this celebration year a memorable one for all the committees involved are being developed currently and details of these will be made available in due course.

See this speech in context