Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As I am no longer the Minister of State with responsibility in this Department, I do not want to rewrite policy while I am here. I will certainly bring back the points raised by the Senator to the Minister of State, Deputy Peter Burke. To be clear, the understanding when we set up the urban and rural regeneration funds was that they would achieve the same thing in different settings because they are funded by two different Departments. The majority of towns and villages, and certainly the ones mentioned by Senator Currie, are meant to be part of that. That was always my understanding when it was done and talking to the Minister of State, Deputy Peter Burke, before today's debate, and based on the response to the Senator's question that I read, that is the aim.

We can engage with local authorities to see if there is misrepresentation or misunderstanding. In some cases, towns and villages are grouped together to ensure that they come under the different population numbers. However, Blanchardstown, Clonee and Castleknock are areas that would need intervention by the State in conjunction with local communities and businesses. The Senator is right to call them out here. She asked if we will see tweaks to the Town Centre First initiative. I would imagine that in the coming years different schemes and funding measures will be brought forward as well as tweaks. Even with existing schemes, there are mechanisms there to find the funding that is needed for towns and villages.

I will bring this back to the Minister of State who can probably talk to the Senator about this directly.