John Paul O'Shea (Cork North-West, Fine Gael)
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461. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the funding allocated to Cork county projects as part of the urban regeneration and development fund from 2020 to 2024; the projects approved; if the monies for same have been drawn down by Cork County Council, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15171/25]

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) is supporting a programme of significant transformational capital projects that will contribute to the regeneration and rejuvenation of Ireland’s five cities and other large towns, in line with the objectives of the National Planning Framework and the National Development Plan.

To date, there have been three rounds of funding provided under the URDF, with approximately €1.9 billion allocated so far. Under Call 1 and Call 2, 132 proposals comprised of some 428 individual projects, were approved for funding. URDF supported projects are now active in every local authority area in the country.

While Call 1 and 2 funding was provided for specific urban regeneration and development projects, Call 3 funding is supporting an approved programme of acquisitions in each local authority to address long term vacancy and dereliction in URDF towns and cities, and support the key objectives of Housing for All and Town Centre First.

The table attached shows the URDF support allocated to Cork County Council for projects approved under Call 1 and 2 by year from 2020 to 2024 and drawdown of URDF support to date. For completeness, URDF allocations in 2019 have also been included.

Under URDF Call 3, Cork County Council was allocated €5m in 2023. As part of the Government decision on the third round of funding under the URDF, Government approved the inclusion of additional towns to the URDF programme where, following publication of the 2022 Census results, they meet the eligibility criteria. Following analysis of the published results it was determined that Bandon, Clonakilty and Carrigtwohill met the eligibility criteria for URDF status. Cork County Council’s Call 3 URDF allocation increased accordingly with an additional €3m in URDF support allocated in 2024 bringing the Council’s total Call 3 URDF allocation to €8m.

As a signal of Government commitment to the Call 3 initiative, Cork County Council received €1m of their Call 3 allocation by way of forward funding, so that they were well resourced to begin tackling this issue.