Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)

The issue I raise today is facing a lot of towns across the country, especially in my constituency and town. In the likes of Leixlip and neighbouring towns like Kilcock, we see the centre of our towns facing dereliction and us having to do them up. We have vacant homes and towns that need regeneration. I want to draw a couple of key points that were brought up in the programme for Government. We need to establish a new towns and cities infrastructure investment fund to replace the urban regeneration and development fund, URDF, because it seems we are not able to get anyone new onto the URDF scheme. If it is to be replaced, when will it be replaced? We must also have a fund available for towns to draw down. We have a lot of shovel-ready projects in our towns. When are we going to get the funds to do them and when will we be in a position to revitalise our town centres? That would involve above-the-shop living refurbishment schemes as well.

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