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

I see the point the Deputy is making all right. In fairness, the majority of the applications that came in were from community owned ones. There are some local authority owned ones. However, I take the Deputy's point that if there is an obligation on the local authorities to support those centres, they should be honouring that obligation. At the same time, we want to make sure that we have good facilities.

Of course, this was supposed to be originally a €15 million fund but in the end, we announced over €45 million in grants. As I stated in Hartstown, we are all on the same hymn sheet when it comes to supporting our community centres. As with any scheme we have, we will certainly look at it to see can we make it better.

Generally, the feedback has been really good on this scheme. We will engage with everybody over the course of the coming months in terms of paying out the money and if we see issues that need to be addressed, we are happy to do that. Indeed, I am happy to hear any suggestions from here as well. As I have stated previously, I listen.

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