Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 3 April 2019
60. Deputy Dara Calleary asked the Minister for Rural and Community Development the progress to date in the Action Plan for Rural Development on the pilot scheme to encourage residential occupancy in rural towns and villages as committed to under the plan. [15474/19]
View answerIn January 2017, the pilot scheme for residential occupancy in rural towns and villages was announced. In October 2018, the Minister announced the six towns in the pilot scheme. Can the Minister provide the House with an update on the progress of the pilot scheme? Will it be completed by the end of 2019? In the context of homelessness figures rising above 10,000 last week, including over 3,000 children, what interaction is the Minister's Department having with the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government around the scheme?
Question No. 90 in my name is worded almost exactly the same as Question No. 60. Can the Acting Chairman clarify whether I can come in on that?
The selection of questions is solely a matter for the Minister. If we have a little time, I will allow the Deputy to come in.
It is the exact same question.
It is not the Chair's prerogative.
I ask the Minister to look at the question, which is exactly the same.
We will be more than willing to give the Deputy a few seconds to come in.
I launched the pilot town living scheme last October to encourage increased residential occupancy at the heart of our rural towns and villages. The six towns included in the pilot scheme are Boyle, County Roscommon; Callan, County Kilkenny; Ballinrobe, County Mayo; Banagher, County Offaly; Castleblayney, County Monaghan; and Cappoquin, County Waterford. The scheme is being led by the relevant local authorities which are acting in close collaboration with all relevant stakeholders. Funding of up to €100,000 is being made available to each local authority to progress the pilot scheme. The funding will be used by local authorities to engage with communities and local businesses to identify practical solutions to increase the number of people living in rural towns. I expect to receive a report from each of the local authorities in the first half of the year on the progress they have made. The six towns identified for the pilot represent a range of different sizes in different locations, each of which has its own strengths and challenges. Given the mix of towns involved, they may each come up with different solutions to meet the needs of their areas. However, the learnings from these pilots may also provide an indication as to what might work well for similar types of town on a wider scale. It is envisaged that the solutions identified through this pilot could lead to the development of more substantive proposals for funding from the rural regeneration and development fund in due course.
Is the pilot scheme on schedule? When will we be in a position to learn the lessons of the pilot scheme, given that the commitment to run it was made in January 2017? It was due to be completed by quarter 3 of 2017 but it took a long time to commence and the towns were only announced in quarter 3 of 2018. When will we have the lessons? I am aware that some projects have been announced in Ballinrobe, but is there a focus on residential property and is the Minister liaising with the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government to co-ordinate an approach? To quote the Minister, Deputy Ring, himself, Ireland is unbalanced. While there is a shortage of housing in our key population centres, many of our rural towns are experiencing a shortage of services which are declining due to a lack of people. Surely the Minister and the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, should liaise on this project and work on a combined approach to using the scheme as part of the response to our housing crises.
I will use my discretion to let Deputy Connolly in for 30 seconds.
My question is exactly the same, so I am not sure what mistake was made. I know it was not the Acting Chairman's mistake, but 30 seconds is difficult. I could not disagree with the Minister's comments when he launched the scheme. Our towns and villages are at the heart of our rural communities and should be places in which people can live and raise their families in a high-quality environment. While it is a wonderful scheme, the problem has been its roll-out, which has been delayed. I have no problems with the choice of the six towns, but it is important to know what criteria were used to pick them and what criteria will be used to choose the next towns. I think of Galway. We all think of our own cities and counties, but I want to think nationally also. As such, when I look at Galway, I see that no town in the county was picked notwithstanding that we have the largest Gaeltacht nationally. I have just come back from Ballyferriter which I visited with the Irish committee and I have seen how common themes have emerged in rural areas. There is a dearth of places to live, in particular houses, and there is an absence of employment. These issues are tied together.
I note to Deputy Calleary that some people, albeit not him, misunderstand that the €100,000 funding is provided, not to carry out repairs and so on, but rather to allow local authorities to work with communities, chambers of commerce and community groups. I am asking them to look at how we can get people back living in towns and villages. Deputy Calleary noted the level of vacant property around the place and that is exactly what I am trying to target. We have never had as many people living and working in rural Ireland. However, we have a different rural Ireland now. I have made the point before that we had shops on streets in towns in every corner of the country from the 1940s right up to the 1980s. That changed with multinational stores coming in. Those stores are being challenged in turn by online shopping. We hope the six towns we have selected will come back. Some might come back with similar ideas and proposals the Government may need to implement to target people to live in towns. The Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government had a scheme that did not work which means it was not the right scheme.
If we are going to introduce schemes, we have to make sure that they are working. Deputy Connolly talked about the criteria. I could have picked any number of towns around the country. I left it up to the officials. We tried to vary the size and locations. I looked at Galway to see if I could get a Gaeltacht town that might fit into this scheme. That does not mean, when this pilot scheme is done, that I will not pick another 12 towns. I will try to pick 12 different counties to see what we can do. I hope that this scheme will come back with good ideas and good suggestions. I hope that Government will follow up with Deputy Calleary too.
I know the Minister is sending money to local authorities for plans. There are many plans and not much action, which I know frustrates the Minister. We have all these empty spaces, even in towns and cities that are relatively healthy. As Deputy Connolly spoke, I thought of Galway. There is a lot of space above retail units that previously contained homes. With a little thinking outside the box, they could be homes again, especially considering the pressure that local authorities are under, and offered as options to older people to live in towns and closer to services. Fewer plans and more action might be the best outcome here.
This is a wonderful scheme. The problem is that we do not know what criteria were used or how they were used. That is okay because it is a pilot project, but we need the result of the pilot project back on time because there has been a delay to the date in the roll-out. We need to learn from the pilot project and to look at it nationally to see which areas would benefit the most. We will clearly all pick our own areas. I am not asking the Minister to do that. In Galway and south Mayo, which is in the Galway West constituency, I think of Kilmaine, Shrule, Carraroe, Carna and of the Gaeltacht, the population of which has dropped. There is a serious crisis with the language. Surely there should be Gaeltacht areas as an essential criterion here. It is important that we publish the details of the project, learn from it and have openness and accountability about the criteria. This involves a substantial amount of money.
With regard to the selection process, we could have picked any number of places around the country. We tried to get the right spread and size. In response to Deputy Calleary, the local authorities are the organisations that move the funding through but we expect that the communities will lead to get results. We give them funding and they can employ experts. A number of people have come to my Department but I do not want to get into that, because it is not for me to select who will do the work that needs to be done for these towns. I hope that they will come back. This is the first time that it is not the Government telling communities what to do. We are telling the communities to tell us what they need. The six towns that come back might have the same ideas. There is an issue relating to dereliction of property and we may need to do more for the compulsory purchase of these properties. Maybe we need to give local authorities more power to be able to take over some of these properties. There is a demand for housing for people across the country, including in rural Ireland. I would like to see some good ideas from this. With the rural regeneration scheme, we want to target areas that need investment. That is why, this week, I set out with my officials to explain to local authorities, even though they were blaming me, that they were not shovel-ready when they submitted applications. It is like the Christy Moore song with the line "Don't forget your shovel if you want to go to work." Many of these did not have the shovel but pretended to.
