Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I agree with the Deputy on that. There are powers available to local authorities under the Department of housing and local government and they should be used more. To assist in that regard, my Department has funded 26 town regeneration officers in local authorities. Their job is to drive the delivery of the town centre first programme, which entails a suite of supports for which we have allocated €4.5 million to regenerate town centres through a bottom-up approach.

It will allow for the development of a second phase of 26 town centre first plans, the establishment and development of town teams in smaller towns across the country and looking at that project development measure, which I referred to, as to the pipeline.

Within County Kerry, town and village renewal has funded the purchase and regeneration of the Sisters of St. Clare convent in Kenmare into a community space. It has funded public realm enhancement in Ballybunion of up to €250,000 and the redevelopment of the disused craft workshops around Blennerville Mill in the Deputy's own town up to €500,000. We refurbished the former Garda station in Moyvane as a community activity with €250,000. Sixty-seven projects have been funded to date under town and village renewal in Kerry, a lot of them with a town centre focus, but with the partnership between the project development manager and the town centre teams and town centre first, we can get to somewhere like where the Deputy describes.

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