Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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394. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the number of town centre first plans passed by local authorities, in tabular form. [36913/25]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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Launched in 2022, the Town Centre First (TCF) Policy is a major cross-government policy that aims to tackle vacancy, combat dereliction and breathe new life into our town centres. TCF supports the Our Rural Future vision for a thriving rural Ireland by setting out a framework to facilitate and resource the regeneration of Irish towns to ensure they are vibrant, viable places to live, work, invest in, and visit.

In December 2021, funding of €2.6 million was announced to support the development of TCF Town Plans nationally in 26 pilot towns. These community-based plans are produced by individual Town Teams, drawn from local community and business representatives, and are helping communities develop a vision for their town and identify viable projects to realise that vision. This first phase of TCF plans are complete, have moved onto the project delivery phase and can be accessed on the Town Centre First website at this address: towncentrefirst.ie/

In February 2024, a new dedicated TCF suite of supports was launched with €4.5 million allocated through three funding streams. This includes an allocation of €30,000 each for the development of a further 26 TCF plans for a new suite of towns. These projects are ongoing and are expected to be completed by the end of this year.

Further details of the towns and projects awarded funding under these measures can be found on: www.gov.ie/en/publication/473d3-town-centre-first-policy/

The table below sets out the towns which have received support to develop Town Centre First Plans as requested. It should be noted that a range of funding streams across Government also support the implementation of the TCF approach across the country, for example the Rural Regeneration and Development Fund and the Urban Regeneration and Development Fund.