Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Our Rural Future aims at reimagining rural Ireland by revitalising towns and villages and getting more people to live in, work in and enjoy rural areas. It notes that Ireland's overall economic and social well-being depends on the strength of the recovery in rural areas. It also recognises the centrality of communities in delivering on this ambitious new vision. The policy commits to enhancing community benefit through building empowered communities, developing social enterprises to create jobs and generate community impact and exploring new approaches to community benefit such as community ownership.

Our Rural Future is a five-year policy, with measures to be delivered over its lifetime. As such, my Department's approach to implementation is based on a series of annual work programmes, with associated monitoring and reporting structures. My Department, in co-operation with other relevant Departments, plans to begin the examination of the potential for a specific community ownership fund as part of the 2022 work programme. However, a number of actions are already happening across government that support the ambition of this measure. Communities can already access some existing funding streams to bring vacant buildings back into use as multipurpose or enterprise spaces and-or for residential occupancy, for instance, under the town and village renewal scheme, although this is not the only purpose of that scheme. Likewise, LEADER can, in specific cases, be leveraged to support the acquisition and repurposing of local community assets. As with all the measures contained in Our Rural Future, progress in relation to this recommendation will form part of our ongoing monitoring and implementation structures.

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