Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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41. To ask the Minister for Rural and Community Development if she will expand the 2020 town and village renewal scheme outline for accelerated measure in response to Covid-19 to enable more communities to avail of this funding. [24321/20]

Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party)
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This year’s Town and Village Renewal Scheme has been tailored to focus on interventions that can assist our rural towns and villages to respond to the challenges presented by COVID-19.  The scheme includes an Accelerated Measure which will enable towns and villages to introduce initiatives immediately to support increased footfall and enable people to shop and socialise safely in accordance with public health guidelines.

The scheme also includes a second Measure which places a focus on the recovery of towns and villages from the impact of COVID-19 in the medium-term.

When the 2020 Town and Village Renewal Scheme was launched in May, it had a budget of €15 million, with an indicative budget of €5 million for the Accelerated Measure.  The Government’s July Stimulus Package provided an additional €10 million in funding which will allow more projects in rural towns and villages to respond to the challenges presented by COVID-19.  

Funding for the Accelerated Measure increased from €5 million to €10 million for 2020. This additional funding has allowed my Department to:

- increase the number of funding rounds from two to three;

- increase the number of applications that can be submitted by the Local Authorities; and

- as an exceptional measure, provide funding under the Accelerated Measure for larger towns with a population above 10,000 people.  This is in recognition of the importance of larger towns in supporting the economic and social fabric of surrounding rural communities.

Successful projects under Round 1 and Round 2 of the Accelerated Measure have recently been announced, with a total of €6.1 million being approved for 226 projects to date.  

Applications under Round 3 and from Large Towns are currently being assessed by my officials and further announcements will be made when the process is complete.

Details of the projects that were approved under Rounds 1 and 2 of the Accelerated Measure can be found on the Gov.ie website at the following link: www.gov.ie/en/collection/0012f5-town-and-village-renewal-scheme/.