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

The town centre first policy is a major cross-government policy that aims to tackle vacancy, combat dereliction and breathe new life into our town centres. It supports the our rural future policy for a thriving rural Ireland.

Last week, I attended the national town centre first day with my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Kieran O’Donnell, where I announced the second round of towns that will be provided funding to complete a town centre first plan. This funding is part of a new suite of supports I recently announced, providing €4.5 million to support broader efforts to regenerate town centres through a bottom-up approach. On the day, I was delighted to have the opportunity to meet town regeneration officers, whose roles are funded by my Department, and members of town centre first teams from across the country to discuss with them the efforts they are making at local level to support the development of their towns.

Central to town centre first is the range of support funding in place, including my Department’s rural regeneration and development fund and the town and village renewal scheme. Both schemes have already delivered landmark projects which tackle issues of vacancy and dereliction across rural Ireland.

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Both schemes have also recently completed calls for new applications, and I expect to make further funding announcements on foot of these applications in the coming months. I am aware that the challenges of vacancy and dereliction feature prominently in the applications received under these schemes, so I look forward to announcing support for more high-quality projects shortly.

In the last two years, I have also rolled out the new building acquisition measure to support local authorities to purchase vacant and derelict buildings for future development for community purposes. More than €10m has been provided to date to support local authorities to purchase 53 vacant and derelict buildings. This initiative will see vacant properties such as bank buildings, courthouses, and Garda stations redeveloped as community facilities across rural Ireland.

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