Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein)
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263. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the number and status of urban regeneration schemes. [17260/16]

Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein)
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264. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the cost of planned further regeneration projects. [17261/16]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 263 and 264 together.

Regeneration projects being funded by my Department target the country’s most disadvantaged communities, including those defined by the most extreme social exclusion, unemployment and anti-social behaviour. My Department currently supports a programme of large-scale regeneration projects in Dublin, Cork and Limerick and smaller projects in Tralee, Sligo and Dundalk. The 2016 allocation for existing commitments on regeneration projects is €50 million.

The regeneration project at Limerick has been in operation for over seven years, with a cumulative investment to date of some €245 million. It is expected that 2016 will see significant building works, which will include the major part of a contract for 83 new social housing units. The regeneration project at Cork City is continuing with 23 new social houses delivered during 2015 and work on a further 23 units commenced in 2016. Regeneration works consisting of major refurbishment and renewal in Dundalk and Sligo are ongoing, while Tralee regeneration is largely complete. In the Dublin City area, two new large regeneration projects, Dolphin House and St. Teresa’s Gardens, are expected to move to construction in 2016.

I am confident that in the context of the priority on urban regeneration set out in the Programme for a Partnership Government, I will be in a position to provide increased funding in 2017 and subsequent years for a range of measures that address deep-rooted disadvantage, while developing an approach to urban regeneration that empowers people to work together to improve their communities, to reduce poverty, disadvantage and inequality.