Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

That is great. I have two more measures for the Minister of State as well. The first is that his Department is spending approximately €31,000 through the local infrastructure housing activation fund and the serviced sites fund in releasing sites for housing development, mainly across the urban centres, the eastern part of the country and in our cities.

At the same time, we have a substantial number of vacant houses in many rural villages and towns. The local authorities are not interested in the context of the various schemes because there is not a demand in those locations for local authority housing. However, there are many families here in Dublin or in other cities who would relocate, particularly now that they can work remotely. I ask that we introduce a grant scheme for families whereby they could get half the amount to which I refer, up to €15,000, which would allow them to relocate from the cities into some of the villages and bring life back into those where the necessary infrastructure is already in place.

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