Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein)
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71. To ask the Minister for Rural and Community Development for an update on her Department's plans to address dereliction and vacancy in rural towns and villages. [40661/24]

Violet-Anne Wynne (Clare, Independent)
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75. To ask the Minister for Rural and Community Development the expected timeline for the second phase of the town centre first programme for towns such as Kilrush, County Clare; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [40647/24]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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76. To ask the Minister for Rural and Community Development the lessons that have been learned from the first phase of the town centre first policy; the constraints, if any, on its rapid expansion; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [40312/24]

Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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I ask for an update on the Department's plans to address dereliction and vacancy in our rural towns and villages. When we travel around the country, we see that many rural towns have a lot of buildings that are closed, including old shops, bars and once-thriving businesses. A lot of houses are also closed up, many of which are derelict. We have an unusual situation whereby there is a housing crisis not just in urban Ireland but in rural Ireland as well.

I would like to know what more will be done to ensure we bring life back into those towns, get people back living in them again and make businesses viable for the future. This relates to my earlier question on rural proofing and ensuring that we have policies that will direct funding into the areas where the most potential lies and activity can happen in order to regenerate many of our rural towns and villages.

Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 71, 75 and 76 together.

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. It supports the vision outlined in Our Rural Future for a thriving rural Ireland. It does this by providing a framework to facilitate and resource the regeneration of Irish towns to ensure they are vibrant and viable places to live, work, invest in and visit.

Significant progress has been made since the launch of the TCF policy. For example, a national TCF office has been established in the Local Government Management Agency, LGMA, to drive the actions under the policy, 26 town regeneration officers have been appointed in each local authority to work as central drivers of TCF at a local level and a national oversight and advisory group has been established which oversees delivery of the TCF policy.

In December 2021, funding of €2.6 million was announced to support the development of 26 TCF plans. These community-based plans are produced by individual town teams drawn from local community and business representatives and are helping communities to develop a vision for their town and identify viable projects to realise that vision. This first phase of TCF plans is complete and has moved onto project delivery phase, including a plan for Lusk, in my constituency, Lusk for Life, that I was delighted to launch earlier this year. These town plans can be viewed on the TCF website at towncentrefirst.ie.

Last February, a new TCF suite of supports was launched, with an additional allocation of €4.5 million to help regenerate town centres through a bottom-up approach. This includes the development of a second phase of 26 TCF plans, the establishment and development of town teams nationwide and the completion of a large range of new community projects under a development measure. My constituency, Dublin Fingal, was recently awarded funding for two projects in Lusk under the TCF project development measure, in line with the vision provided in its TCF plan, showing the excellent progress towns such as Lusk are making in delivering on their vision for the area.

All successful projects and towns supported under the TCF suite of supports are available to view on the Department's website. The national office is establishing a clear methodology and approach to the development and structure of future plans. The preparation and finalisation of phase 2 TCF plans, including a plan for Kilrush in County Clare and Rush in County Dublin, are scheduled for 2025.

As is demonstrated by the 33 actions contained within the TCF policy, the significance of town centre first is that it provides for an integrated policy approach for the development of Irish towns, rather than it being a funded programme in and of itself. A number of major Government funding streams have now been aligned closely with TCF, including programmes such as the urban regeneration and development fund, the rural regeneration and development fund and the town and village renewal scheme.

Examples of recent funding announcements include €164 million announced for 30 regeneration projects under the rural regeneration and development fund in May and €20 million allocated under the town and village renewal scheme in April. These funding streams are critical to addressing challenges of vacancy and dereliction, and I am advised that it is intended to announce further calls for applications under both schemes in the coming weeks.

It is also important to note that there is a range of other support funding in place right across Government. I have already noted that the TCF policy has been developed in conjunction with my colleague, the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, and I encourage Deputies to look at the Government publication Bringing Back Homes which details more than 20 incentives, funded measures and grants to support a reversal of housing vacancy and dereliction. Some of the main supports available in regard to housing vacancy, in particular, include the vacant property refurbishment grant under the Croí Cónaithe initiative, the repair and leasing scheme, the buy and renew scheme and the living city initiative.

It is important that momentum is maintained in the delivery of the TCF policy. In this regard, some of the key priorities for the TCF national office over the coming months include the publication of the TCF national toolkit to support delivery, the roll-out of capacity building supports for town teams and continued research and consultation to identify examples of best practice which can be implemented in towns across Ireland.

It is also essential that we learn from our experience of the implementation of the TCF policy to date. With this in mind, there is a commitment in the policy to undertake a review of the effectiveness of the policy three years from its launch, which will be mid-2025. Any learnings that emerge from that process will be used to inform future decisions regarding TCF. In the meantime, the Government remains fully committed to the success of the TCF policy and will continue to work closely across Departments to deliver on the goal of revitalising rural towns and villages.

Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Minister of State.

Much work is happening in towns and villages where new footpaths and public areas and so forth are being provided, which is all welcome and positive. People cannot live on footpaths or in regenerated areas; they need homes in which to live. Many of the houses and old buildings in the towns are privately owned. While the Croí Cónaithe scheme certainly helps, it does not go anywhere near the distance it needs to go to get many of these buildings regenerated and brought back to life. The reason is that for most people who own them, those buildings are more of a liability than an asset. It might be an old house in a town with big thick stone walls and rooms the size of wardrobes that was built 100 years ago. To go inside to try to do something with it would probably cost far more than it would to knock it down and build a new building. That is the reality of it and that is why the Croí Cónaithe scheme, as welcome as it, does not go nearly far enough to be able to create that kind of regeneration. In some cases, I suggest we need to see local authorities trying to purchase some of these buildings to regenerate them back into housing stock or for public and community use.

Violet-Anne Wynne (Clare, Independent)
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The Minister of State outlined quite a bit of information there. However, I was hoping to get an expected timeline for the second phase of the town centre first programme for towns such as Kilrush in County Clare. Specifically on Kilrush, Pobal did its deprivation report there last year which pointed to Kilrush being the most severely deprived settlement in County Clare. It is the only area to be classed as extremely disadvantaged in the whole county. For example, out of a population of 306, only 6% are attending third-level education, one in three are unemployed and 47% of households were recorded as lone parent families. We have a number of vacancies in Kilrush town. It has one of the highest rates in the county along with Shannon but also in respect of industrial units. There is lot of work to be done there.

Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party)
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One of the best ways I can describe to the Deputy the potential of the town centre first policy is from what I have seen in my own area. Much of it is capital investment for sure, but the starting phase of much of it was actually consultation with the local community who knew their town best. That happened in Lusk. There was huge consultation and huge input. People are obviously very interested in improving the community and the village in which they live. It was an enormous consultation with lots of ideas put together. Then, it would have been about meeting the planners head on.

A town centre first policy was developed for Lusk and now we have a blueprint for the town going forward. It is not just a blueprint; it is one that fits in with the capital programmes that are available in my Department and other Departments. One of the things we have been able to do in recent months with that blueprint for Lusk in particular is give funding for two things, which are small steps but will bring life back into the town. For example, we are looking at two sites for a skateboard park. A big problem in Lusk is that there is not enough for young people to do. That is a small step in the right direction. Lusk is in the middle of a huge market gardening area and yet the centre of the town has been hollowed out. We are, therefore, exploring how to bring a farmers' market into the centre of the town. There is huge scope for it there. What has happened in Lusk has given hope to the people in the town next door to it, in Rush, in that we have now provided them with funding to start the ball rolling as well. To be fair to Fingal County Council, and we need the council involved here, it has started to move in that regard. There are five derelict sites on the main street in Rush with derelict site notices on them. The council is prepared to move on them unless someone puts their hand up for them. It is, therefore, having an impact.

The Deputy asked a question with regard to investment in Kilrush. My understanding is that it was part of the second tranche. There has been some funding started there. I understand €30,000 was put in that direction. I am not sure what the council there is doing with that yet, but I can certainly look for more and get back to the Deputy on what the plan is. Kilrush is in a good place, however. If it is on the list at all, albeit the second tranche, then I would hope more will follow.

Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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We know and appreciate that some advances are happening in many of these areas and that is very welcome. We are still in a situation where we do not have people living in these areas. I appreciate that derelict site notices are up and that is a help. It is the big stick with which to beat people to try to force them to do something. However, there need to be more initiatives on the other side to create some kind of fund to assist people to try to do something with many of these properties, or at least a system to move them on to somebody else who will do something with them. As I said, in many cases they have been laying derelict for decades and nothing is going to happen to them unless there is some initiative to make something happen. A big part of that is having a carrot to provide some kind of funding to assist people in that manner.

The Minister of State mentioned that more money is being rolled out and there is going to be a review of how this money has been spent up to now and what positives have come from it. That is welcome because these things need to be reviewed. Of course, there are people in many of these towns who have complaints and objections. They feel that a lot of the parking has been taken away and that there are an awful lot of other issues in this. All that needs to be weighed up because there needs to be balance as well. We also need to look not just at the town centres but at the back lands, as it were, of towns. There are sometimes opportunities behind some of these houses to create spaces and access for people, particularly people who need to live in those areas.

Violet-Anne Wynne (Clare, Independent)
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I thank the Minister of State for that information. I welcome any kind of engagement on where the €30,000 is going. I know there was consultation in respect of the old Mars Cinema building in Kilrush. I was delighted to see that was open for all the community to come along and have their say.

I have been contacted by a number of business owners in the Kilrush town area. They have properties above their shops, and they want to see them turned into rental accommodation, for example. Along with the review the Minister of State outlined, we could find other ways to inject funding into these communities where we know deprivation is high to give them a fighting chance to get those necessary works done on those properties. There is a huge demand for one-bed and two-bed properties on the housing list in County Clare. It would be very beneficial to see an expansion of the vacant refurbishment scheme and the additional funding the Minister of State outlined that will come with the town centre first scheme.

Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party)
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I do not have a list of all the incentives that are in the Department of housing, but there are incentives for that over-the-shop vacancy and other recent incentives. On the town centre first scheme, local knowledge and consultation with the community has to be the basis of it. My understanding of the allocation to Kilrush is that it is to feed into the development of a plan. Obviously, the plan is the starting point. There are other supports available to support the town team and the council to do this work. It does involve work, and we do not expect it all to be done voluntarily. I would go back to local knowledge and how it needs to come from the ground up as well. Much of the basis for the town centre first plan is that it fits with what we can provide either in the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage or the Department of Rural and Community Development in order that it is not just another plan that is left on the shelf. I can testify to the fact it is working, certainly in my area. There will be plans for further roll-out of the town team support fund as well. Again, in my area, Balrothery and Ballyboughal have been earmarked for that support. They are villages but they very much fit the description of villages that have been hollowed out. There is a strong community there, however, and people want to see life brought back into the centre. This policy is working and will work into the future. I look forward to the review. We are eager to review it because we want this to work. People want this to work as well. We are going in the right direction.