Michael Cahill (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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281. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government to promote the expansion of the urban regeneration and development fund, across County Kerry to help address vibrancy of town and village centres, vacancy and dereliction; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14857/25]

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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A flagship element of Project Ireland 2040, the €2 billion Urban Regeneration and Development Fund (URDF) supports a programme of significant transformational capital projects that will contribute to the regeneration and rejuvenation of Ireland’s cities and other large towns, in line with the objectives of the National Planning Framework and the National Development Plan.

With regard to Kerry, Tralee and Killarney, as they both have a population in excess of 10,000, are the eligible towns under URDF. €35,035,939 in URDF support has been provided to Kerry County Council for their 5 successful proposals under the first two Calls for proposals, comprising of 17 individual projects. Under the third round of funding (Call 3), an allocation of €2,500,000 was issued to the Council for an approved programme of acquisitions to tackle long term vacancy and dereliction across their URDF eligible towns.

As set out in the Programme for Government, it is my intention to continue and expand URDF-type investment in projects as part of the new Towns and Cities Infrastructure Investment Fund. This will allow for investment in infrastructure, the acquisition of land, assembly of sites and the de-risking of sites in existing towns and cities to maximise their potential growth.

The detailed arrangements for the implementation of these funding streams will be clarified further following completion of the National Development Plan Review, which will enable the level of additional capital funding for infrastructure investment to be determined.