Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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83. To ask the Minister for Rural and Community Development for an update on the town and village renewal scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14577/25]

Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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I would like an update on the town and village renewal scheme. Will the Minister make a statement on that?

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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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.

Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Minister for the reply. It will be particularly relevant to towns in Kerry, particularly Listowel, Dingle, Kenmare and Cahirciveen Since Covid, many people have been returning to rural towns to live. However, town centres in Kerry, maybe with the exception of Killarney, are under severe pressure. There is a lot of dereliction in them. Is the Minister satisfied with the progress made to date on the collecting of levies? He mentioned the derelict sites measure. There is a register that county councils are obliged to maintain. It seems Kerry County Council has not been active enough in commencing compulsory purchase orders. I see from the latest statistics available that zero sites were acquired by agreement in 2023, and zero sites were acquired compulsorily. There were levies of €231,000 but zero received for sites, and €979 in total was received. Therefore, there is an outstanding levy figure of €703,000. The authorities must act to use the schemes already in place if what is wanted is to renew the town centres.

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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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.

Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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I am glad the Minister brought up the town centre first approach because I see it was in the last programme for Government and it is in the current one. If it was the case there was a priority for town centre first, then the Department of Justice or the Courts Service would not be deciding to close the current courthouse in Tralee and to move it to another side of town without any plan to do anything at all with the building, which is right in the centre of town and has been there since the 1840s.

The current proposal is preposterous in my view. Rather than doing a job like was done in Kilkenny with a budget of €20 million odd for every new courthouse or rather than using an An Post depot that is for sale and refurbishing that or refurbishing the current courthouse, it is planned to close it down and move across to the Denny site, which has been given by the Kerry Group, while limiting any development there and not having any additional benefit to the town. It is not too late to reverse that decision but we will wait and see. I ask the Minister to talk to his colleagues in government about what can be done to do that.

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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Anything to do with town centre refurbishment and regeneration should be done on a cross-government basis. Under town and village renewal and under the building or land acquisition measure, there might be potential for Kerry County Council to look at doing something if that plan continues. We are absolutely committed to town centre first and getting plans in place to identify this kind of project in advance and to look at the use of buildings in advance so they do not just get landed on people without notice and there is some sort of a plan. The town regeneration officers, the town centre first suite of supports and the building or land acquisition measure under town and village renewal gives the possibility, opportunity and chance to do that.

As I said, we have previously funded the repurposing of courthouses. If Kerry County Council has a plan in relation to that building, I encourage it to discuss that. From the Department of Rural and Community Development, we have funded the employment of people within local authorities to apply for these plans and for the funding. It puts a huge pressure on local authorities and it requires a level of expertise but we have made that funding available to do that.