Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The town and village renewal scheme, which was introduced in 2016, has to date allocated over €177 million to almost 1,800 projects nationally. The scheme, which sees our local authorities work with community actors, primarily targets funding at rural towns and villages with populations of less than 10,000.

I am delighted to announce that the 2025 scheme has been opened for applications. The 2025 scheme is intended to support revitalisation and continue its work by focusing on stimulating town centre economic and social regeneration, along with the regeneration of villages. This will be achieved through projects that support sustainable employment, town centre resilience and regeneration, the enhancement of streetscapes, and the bringing of vacant and derelict buildings or lands back into use as community multipurpose spaces.

Under the 2025 scheme, there are three main funding streams available for project applications. Under what we call the main scheme, local authorities can submit applications for one project up to a value of €500,000 and for up to thee further projects with maximum values of €300,000. In addition, as part of a new development this year, counties with offshore islands or ceantair Ghaeltachta, tá cead acu application amháin eile de luach €300,000 a dhéanamh. The second stream is the project development measure that provides up to €50,000 to undertake the required planning and development work to underpin the development of successful projects. Finally, the building and land acquisition measure is available once again, following on from the success of the support provided in this area in recent years. This funding stream makes up to €500,000 available to each eligible local authority to purchase vacant or derelict buildings for later development as community facilities.

All the details of the 2025 scheme are available on my Department's website and my officials will continue to liaise with local authorities. I am happy to provide information to any Deputy who wishes to assist community groups in his or her area.

See this speech in context