John McGahon (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

What I would like to raise today is the importance of urban regeneration funding for the provincial towns around the country and I will use my own home town of Dundalk as a case in point. The Bridge Street-Linenhall Street area has been a neglected part of Dundalk for the past 40-odd years for various different reasons. It is a part of the town of Dundalk that has the most sincere and genuine sense of community. Other parts of my town have benefited from urban regeneration funding over the past couple of years but the north end, Bridge Street and Linenhall Street, have been consistently left behind. We have people like Mr. Martin McElligott, who is the manager of the business improvement district scheme, BIDS, in Dundalk. We have people on Louth County Council who are pushing hard to improve this area. However, they cannot do that unless they get substantial funding. I am talking of funding in the millions of euro which would be required for urban regeneration to totally transform the streetscape to make it more attractive for new businesses to move in and to make it more attractive for people to go and shop in that area. The area has a wonderful sense of community and it is crying out for substantial funding. I would appreciate it if we could invite the Minister to this House at some stage in the near future to talk about urban regeneration funding and the benefits that it can have for towns right across Ireland, in particular, for the area of Dundalk I raise here today. It would be important to do that and push for urban regeneration funding in the provincial towns and large towns, such as the town of Dundalk.