Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for his reply. He has put his finger on it in terms of the gap that exists. I am sure there are communities in his constituency that are similar to this one. There was significant residential development during the Celtic tiger. Anew county development plan for County Meath went though the High Court and has just been adopted. It significantly caps the amount of residential development in Stamullen. The previous model, which was not a successful one, was a developer-led model that involved delivering facilities for the community in line with significant residential development. That is not going to deliver for this community. The option is not there. They have gone everywhere to try to find it.

Stamullen and similar areas need a vehicle that can, on behalf of the State, acquire lands for public use. Municipal parks are a foreign land for us in County Meath. They do not exist there in the way that they do in other places. Meath County Council does not have a parks department. The local community in Stamullen, as well as those in several other urban centres in the county, have been affected by this. There have been campaigns for a public park, a playground and a skate park. The local scouts do not have a den. These are infrastructural deficits.

I very much welcome the fact that the Minister of State is encouraging the local authority to come to the table. I ask him to point towards the type of funding streams available to the local authority along with his Department.

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