Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I accept that but equally I could point to the success of Castlerea, which is also in the Deputy’s constituency and where there has been the fantastic story of Harmac Medical Products along with the fantastic work under way in the food innovation hub and in the demesne, led by our colleague, Paschal Fitzmaurice. I want to work with towns and try to engender that kind of spirit. The Deputy was involved in the creation of the rural regeneration and development fund RRDF. There is the urban regeneration and development fund, URDF, for bigger towns. The Ministers, Deputies Humphreys and Darragh O’Brien, are leading out on those. We have the town centre first project from within the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. It is funded to the tune of €500,000 per project to try to get initiatives going in towns right across the country. We absolutely have an opportunity from the national broadband plan to build on that but we cannot guarantee success for every town. That is why the Minister, Deputy Coveney, is leading out on the regional enterprise conferences, starting in Letterkenny, as was stated, and continuing right across the country to try to engender that sense of enterprise in every region, not just some of them.

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