Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The Minister's response is very positive and the figure of €156 million for 1,700 projects is impressive. I am glad she mentioned the requirement for buy-in from local communities. Going through that participative process is key to success. I am sure if she had time she would have mentioned Blessington in my constituency. It has a beautiful wide main street, a beautiful square and was a market town back in the day. We are working constructively on developing an inner relief road to take a lot of the heavy goods traffic that is currently using the N81.

Vacant homes officers, town regeneration officers and the town teams are working closely with public representatives. When we combine that with the funding under the urban regeneration and development fund, URDF, and the rural regeneration and development fund, RRDF, there really is a very positive impact on our towns and villages. It highlights how the Government has really concentrated on bringing life and living into those towns and villages. Croí Cónaithe is another important scheme that helps to bring empty or vacant buildings back into residential use. Having residential footfall, with people living and walking around a town, is good for local business. It is good to have that life brought back into towns. It is also a form of climate action to try to consolidate towns and prevent continual sprawl.

I was very impressed by some of the measures in the our rural future policy, which was issued approximately two years ago, and the town centre first policy. It can be a little confusing for people that there are so many funding streams. We need to ensure people know about all these different streams. Alongside large-scale infrastructural development funding, the smaller measures make a huge difference to the residents of towns and villages.

See this speech in context