Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am a little disappointed. The initiative was launched in January 2017 as a pilot. It took up to October 2018 to roll it out. The report, which I have read in detail, was published in May and was available to the Department in February. What did the report cost? The complexity was already noted when this was launched by the then Minister, Deputy Ring. He said the reasons more people do not live in town centres are many and complex. We knew that there were many reasons, we knew about consultation and we knew about working with chambers of commerce and community groups in towns. This initiative was to learn and to see how we could roll it out. Incidentally, not a single town in the Gaeltacht was chosen. The Minister's predecessor noted and acknowledged that it was a gap that needed to be remedied. Why, when the pilot project was run and the report was commissioned and lessons were learned, has it not been rolled out? There are towns in Galway that would benefit, but I do not wish to be parochial. It could be rolled out to any town in any county.

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