Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Croí Conaithe will very much focus on empty buildings and vacant homes that exist right now and such premises will be in different states of disrepair.

The other very serious issue, which will very much help Croí Cónaithe, is above-shop living. That has not been cracked yet in respect of the regulations. We have a group working on that, particularly on fire regulations and so on. It will conclude its work on that very shortly. We will not wait for that to be done to get Croí Cónaithe launched. There are vacant homes on the main street in Clonakilty, in Deputy O'Sullivan's constituency, and in Banagher, County Offaly. They are homes that were residences before. I see the fund working first for them, and then I want to get the above-shop units back in place because the cost of bringing a lot of them back into use is prohibitive for people. Croí Cónaithe will be launched very shortly. The work on access, egress and fire certification is being undertaken by an expert group in the Department, including stakeholders within the sector. That work will conclude this year. We will not wait to launch Croí Cónaithe. We want to launch it soon because there are homes out there that we can get working on pretty much straight away. The resource of above-shop units is one not just within our towns and villages; we see above-commercial-premises units within our cities as well. We have made changes in planning and I have extended the regulations for conversion of commercial buildings, including now conversion of former public houses to residential units without the need for planning permission. That has been done really successfully, particularly in two counties I mentioned, Waterford and Limerick, which have really led the way on this. We are encouraging all counties to do the same.

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