Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 15 September 2022
80. Deputy Claire Kerrane asked the Minister for Rural and Community Development the engagement she has had with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage on eligibility requirements for the Croí Cónaithe scheme for owner-occupiers in rural areas; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [44718/22]
View answerThis is to ask the Minister about the Croí Cónaithe scheme for towns and villages in particular. Will she outline what engagement she and her officials have had with the Minister and the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage with regard to what is a very exciting fund and scheme especially for rural towns and villages? It is very welcome. I wonder what role the Minister played with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage.
Earlier this year, the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage launched the Croí Cónaithe fund. The fund is initially focused on supporting the refurbishment of vacant homes in regional towns and villages and is a key funding support under the town centre first policy which was jointly developed by my Department and the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. The publication of town centre first was a key deliverable under Our Rural Future.
The fund is being delivered by local authorities and will provide new choices for people to live in towns and villages throughout Ireland, initially through the provision of a grant to support the refurbishment of vacant properties, with priority given to areas where the level of vacancy or dereliction is high. There are more than 500 towns and villages in Ireland with a population of more than 400 people. It is intended that the Croí Cónaithe fund will apply in all such towns, and also to some smaller villages. Funding is not currently available for towns within the city and suburb boundaries of Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford.
Each local authority should prioritise consideration of applications in town and village locations based on the following criteria: the overall levels of vacancy and dereliction within the town or village; alignment with policies of the relevant development plan, including areas identified for regeneration; and the role that the fund might play as part of wider town regeneration, especially in the light of emerging town centre first plans. I am committed to ensuring the continued roll-out of the town centre first policy will work to deliver on the goal of revitalising rural towns and villages as set out in Our Rural Future.
While I appreciate this is a joint venture and that perhaps some of my questions come under the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, perhaps the Minister could inform us regarding the eligibility criteria, population and that figure of 400. I have come across a number of cases, for example, a young lad on the road from us is in a village in a country area that does not have a population of more than 400 people. The house he has bought has been empty, definitely throughout my lifetime. He is doing it up but he will not get any assistance because the population of the village is not greater than 400.
Do local authorities have autonomy in this scheme? I appreciate the rules are there for a reason, but would it be the case that if they prioritised all of the eligible applications and there were a few that did not meet that 400 figure, there would be wriggle room? Any house that is being brought back into life in villages should be supported. Is there any wriggle room with regard to eligibility?
I thank the Deputy. I am sure there will be more cases like the one she has just outlined. The criteria were set as towns and villages with a population of over 400 people. First of all, this is a great scheme and I think everybody agrees with that. I am getting a lot of calls from Fine Gael Deputies in particular. Even last night at a meeting it was raised with me. I have been asked can we not expand it further and can we not bring it out into rural areas and can we not make it available for towns and villages with fewer than 400 people.
I worked with the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, and fair play to him, he got this up and running. This is a new scheme. It is out this year. If we can just let it bed in then we can look at expanding it further. I expect there will be good interest in it. It is a good start. I said to somebody last night that we will have to crawl before we walk on this one. It is something I talked about a long time ago and fair play, it has become a reality now. It is the right thing to do. We all know these houses in towns and villages. They are serviced, that is, the water supply and sewerage is there, so we should be able to renovate them easily. They are great as a starter home for young people who want to get on the property ladder. We are doing other stuff in my Department as well. I take the Deputy's point. I will raise it with the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, but to be fair to him we had better let this get bedded in first.
I thank the Minister and I too welcome the scheme. It is a good one and is needed. However, I take it from her answer local authorities do not have autonomy. It would be great if where the authorities have an allocation of X amount of money, do not spend it all and there are a few applications that are on serviced roads where the water and all that is there, they could decide to allocate it to those sites. The decisions about that would be best made by local authorities on the ground that are closer to an area.
I have another point to raise. I read in the document there would be interim reviews as this goes along. Does the Minister know when the first review will be?
This is a really good scheme. It is an exciting scheme for towns and villages. However, the figure of 2,000 homes to be delivered by 2025 is low given we probably have about 166,000 vacant homes across this State. Those are not all in rural areas but that figure should be looked at. We should perhaps be more ambitious about the number of houses we want to see restored because in many cases, in many towns and villages, we do not need to build as we can restore what is there and make a massive difference to communities.
I thank the Deputy. She is right that the fund is being rolled out through the local authorities. As to the flexibility, I am not all over the detail but you can get €30,000. If the refurbishment costs are expected to exceed the standard grant of €30,000 then a maximum top-up grant of up to €20,000 will be available where the property is confirmed to be derelict. This brings the total grant available for a derelict property up to a maximum of €50,000. Applications are to be made to the vacant homes officer in the relevant local authority, so maybe that officer could write to the Department to see if there is any flexibility in that. I take the Deputy's point and fully understand where she is coming from because I am sure we will all be getting these same questions in our constituency offices. As far as my role in town centre renewal and regeneration is concerned, there are a number of funds there. Only this year I gave local authorities funding of €400,000 to acquire buildings. These are old buildings in the towns, be that the Garda station, the old post office, bank or whatever. Each local authority was given €400,000 and they could identify two properties and buy them to turn them over to community use. The Deputy knows there are loads of other initiatives for addressing dereliction and bringing new life back into our towns.
