Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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19. To ask the Minister for Rural and Community Development the make-up of the tool kit for participants in town centre first initiatives; if it will include easy access to the relevant schemes of other Departments such as sustainable energy communities, sports capital grants, connected hubs and business improvement districts; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [8533/22]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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I was delighted to launch the Town Centre First policy earlier this month, along with my colleagues Ministers Burke and Noonan .

The policy aims to create town centres that function as viable, vibrant and attractive locations for people to live, work and visit, while also functioning as the service and social hub for the local community. It contains 33 actions which collectively will support towns to deliver on their potential in a planned way.

The policy commits to developing a national Toolkit to support the implementation of the Town Centre First policy by providing a range of examples of best practice and available resources to guide implementation. The toolkit will encompass specific strands targeting key areas such as enterprise development, the social and cultural functions of towns, digitalisation and climate action.

It will include a national scaled-up Health Check Model to help us understand our towns better and inform the planned actions in each town. It will also include a best practice model for developing Town Centre First Plans.

The Toolkit will also incorporate an online Town Centre First Web Portal to share all of this information, including all aspects of the Toolkit, and to provide access to available funding supports.

I expect this will include all of the relevant supports available across Government, including the schemes referred to by the Deputy. It is vital that towns and their Town Teams have full sight of, and access to, the substantial funding and support available nationally.

The Toolkit  will be developed by the National Town Centre First Office which is currently being established.