Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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493. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the funding provided for public realm enhancement in each of the years 2019, 2024 and 2025, by local authority, in tabular form. [7247/25]

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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My Department provides funding for a range of projects, including those related to the public realm, through a flagship element of Project Ireland 2040 known as the Urban Regeneration and Development Fund (URDF). This fund was one of four funds established under the National Development Plan (NDP) 2018 – 2027. Launched in 2018 with committed Exchequer funding of €2 billion, the review of the NDP in 2021 extended the URDF programme to 2030.

The Fund was established to support more compact and sustainable development, through the regeneration and rejuvenation of Ireland’s five cities and other large towns, in line with the objectives of the National Planning Framework (NPF) and National Development Plan (NDP). It provides up to 75% funding for applicant-led projects that will support more compact and sustainable development and enable a greater proportion of residential and mixed-use development to be delivered within the existing built-up footprints of our cities and large towns, while also ensuring that more parts of our urban areas can become attractive and vibrant places in which people choose to live and work, as well as to invest and to visit.

To date, there have been three rounds of funding provided under the URDF with more than €1.9 billion allocated to public bodies. It provides funding for a wide variety of project types, some of which are public realm projects but many of which include a public realm element as one part of an overall project. So while the latest round of funding (Call 3) was a programme of acquisitions to address long term vacancy and dereliction, funding under Call 1 and Call 2 was provided for specific regeneration projects. These two calls combined provide funding for 132 proposals, comprising of more than 400 individual projects. URDF supported projects are now active in every local authority area in the Country.

In that context, the information requested is being compiled and will be forwarded to the Deputy directly.