Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I was in Macroom last Friday and I was delighted to have a chance to visit the town again and to visit the Deputy in his office. It was good to see him serving his constituents as assiduously as he does every Friday. Our biggest commitment to Macroom is making progress on the Macroom-Ballyvourney bypass which will go to construction next year or, at the very latest, the first part of 2020. It was great to see the town looking so well and so busy and so many people who were there and happy to greet me. There is a problem of vacancy in the town. On Friday, the Minister for Community and Rural Development, Deputy Ring, and I will be in Westport where we will launch the €1 billion fund for rural regeneration and development. Applications for that fund will open in a few months and towns with a population of less than 10,000 will be able to bid for funding from that. I hope they will bring forward interesting ideas, particularly around turning old commercial premises into housing. As a result of the change in retail and it going online, there are real opportunities there. The Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Deputy Madigan, is providing €250,000 from her Department to help reopen the theatre. I appreciate the costs are much greater than that but if the local authority will contribute more, central Government is willing to consider that too.

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