Emer Currie (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Damien English. I congratulate him on the launch of the new Town Centre First policy, which is going to be transformative. Of course, I am here today as a Senator based in Dublin West and I want us to be part of that. Town Centre First, for anyone who does not know, is a policy where local communities and businesses will be supported in revitalising towns and villages through tools and supports. It is about revitalising our communities and, of course, we want to create stronger and safer communities. This ambitious and far-reaching policy contains a range of measures and funding supports aimed at making towns in the various counties more viable and attractive places in which to live, work and visit, while ensuring they are social, cultural and services hubs for the local community.

It is not just rural areas that can benefit from this. As I said, I represent Dublin 15 and Dublin West, which is a collection of various different villages. They are real villages, like Castleknock village, Blanchardstown village, Clonsilla village, Ongar village and Ashtown village. During Covid, we saw how people were closer to home. They were shopping and supporting local, and areas like Blanchardstown saw their greatest footfall ever in the Bank of Ireland and in Supervalu. We could see the effect this was having on the main street. The main streets in these areas often suffer because of their proximity to the city centre and they are not an entirely separate entity, as they might be in rural areas. I do not think we want to go back to a place where those main streets do not get an opportunity to revive as well. There is an opportunity around ensuring we get the benefit of the digital transformation that we saw in Covid, with people working remotely at home. We want more people be able to work remotely but, again, we are missing out on the opportunities in these areas.

I see the Town Centre First model working for areas like this but it is not open to them at the moment. If we look at the funding streams, there is the urban regional development fund, the rural regional development fund, the town and village renewal scheme and the towns fund for servicing sites for new homes and for the refurbishment of vacant homes. We do not get access to those. It is frustrating when we are meeting people from the Tidy Towns or from local groups who see money from these programmes going into other areas but not theirs.They want their community co-working hub and to see community childcare. They want those things to see the transformation on the main street and to retain people who have been working in the area to keep them coming into their shops, whereby the traditional shops can benefit from it as well.

In conclusion, the model around town teams and the fact there is a regeneration officer and a health check could apply here. Mobilising different groups and organisations around this model would have a hugely beneficial effect on suburban areas too.