Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 23 February 2023
11. Deputy Alan Dillon asked the Minister for Rural and Community Development if the 2023 town and village renewal scheme will open for applications; the priorities or themes that will be central to this coming year's scheme; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [9228/23]
View answer47. Deputy Bernard J. Durkan asked the Minister for Rural and Community Development if she will outline her programme for rural and community development throughout the country in the coming year; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [9178/23]
View answer64. Deputy Bernard J. Durkan asked the Minister for Rural and Community Development the degree to which she continues to fund infrastructure throughout the country, in such a way as to encourage the retention of jobs and the attraction of investors in jobs throughout the regions; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [9177/23]
View answerThe town and village renewal scheme is vital to the continued sustainability and enhancement of rural areas across the country. Since its introduction in 2016, hundreds of towns and villages have benefited from the development of community amenities, public spaces and local businesses. I ask the Minister when this year's application process will open and what the priorities or themes will be when included in the upcoming scheme.
I propose to take Questions Nos. 11, 47 and 64 together.
I thank the Deputies for raising this matter. Our Rural Future - Rural Development Policy 2021-2025 creates an overarching vision for a thriving rural Ireland which is integral to our national economic, social, cultural and environmental well-being and development. My Department's mission is to promote rural and community development and to support vibrant, inclusive and sustainable communities throughout Ireland. We do this by delivering a wide range of strategic interventions and investments throughout the country. In 2022, my Department had a budget allocation of €379 million which supported rural and community development, including through investment in infrastructure and initiatives assisting the retention and attraction of jobs throughout the regions. This will continue in 2023.
The programme for Government places a strong emphasis on balanced regional development. My Department supports this commitment through targeted investment that empowers communities, supports sustainable rural regeneration and fosters regional growth. The town and village renewal scheme is one such measure that supports the revitalisation of rural Ireland. Last year, I was delighted to confirm a total funding package of €28.5 million across the various strands of the town and village renewal scheme to support a wide range of projects across rural Ireland. The rural regeneration and development fund has an allocation of €60 million for 2023. To date, 215 projects have been approved for funding of €395 million for projects costing €542 million throughout rural Ireland.
The outdoor recreation infrastructure scheme is another important area of investment, with an allocation for 2023 of €16 million. The allocation for this scheme has increased year on year since 2020 and the projects funded will be key enablers of the recently launched national outdoor recreation strategy, Embracing Ireland's Outdoors. Similarly, I was delighted to introduce significant new supports for the development of community centres across the country last year, while the CLÁR programme and the local improvement scheme continue to deliver important projects in rural communities across the country each year.
Scheme priorities are reviewed at the end of each scheme year and this process is at an advanced stage in respect of planning for our 2023 schemes. As part of this process, I am anxious to ensure that the range of schemes offered by my Department continues to be structured in a way that ensures clear coherence, shows alignment with key policies such as Our Rural Future and the town centre first policy and delivers real and tangible benefits for communities. Scheduling of scheme announcements for 2023 is currently under review by my officials and I expect to be in a position to announce details of the 2023 town and village renewal scheme and other schemes shortly.
I thank the Minister for her response. We certainly see the benefits of the many schemes that she has rolled out through her Department. Many rural towns and villages really benefit and seek solutions from these successful funding programmes to address challenges that they face, whether limited employment opportunities, a decline in population or the lack of essential services and amenities.
Certainly we are putting funds in place that are having enormous benefits and are a real game-changer in rural Ireland in supporting local communities with projects to enhance the social, economic and environmental well-being of these areas, creating as the Minister said previously, more vibrant, attractive and sustainable places for people to live and work. What changes are being made, possibly to streamline the application process? We need to get communities more involved and engaged in these types of applications. It can be quite complex and time-consuming at times and maybe it could be a deterrent for many communities which do not have that level of expertise. I ask that maybe we show some flexibility in the application process.
I compliment the Minister on the extensive work and benefit to all areas throughout the country arising from this particular initiative. I would like to ask the extent to which she expects to be able to encourage inclusivity in communities throughout the country, to encourage the recognition by communities of others within their community, whether they be local, national, or whatever in an effort to bring together and to encourage the bringing together of people who have common cause, common requirements and will need this encouragement and help in the future.
I thank Deputies Dillon and Durkan. Both of them are raising the issue of community involvement and I absolutely agree with them because I believe what we need and continue to need is that local ground-up approach. It is about talking to people on the ground about what they need in their community. These applications for town and village are processed through the local authorities and the local authorities have their community section. I know they engage through different fora with communities, whether it is the public participation network or the local community and development committees. I always say to them to engage, engage, engage and find out what people want on the ground because they know what they need in their areas.
I will continue to impress that point on local authorities. I was in a town in west Cork and people said to me that they felt they were not being included. I said that was not the way it should be, that they should be consulted and part of the development of their town and their village because they are the people who are living there and they are the people who know what is needed most.
There is a plethora of different funding streams from my Department, as the Deputies know, and it is about putting those applications in. Again, it is not what the local authority wants it is what the communities want first and foremost. However, it has to be co-ordinated.
I thank the Minister and I could not agree more. I think that certainly by encouraging community participation in planning and implementation of these projects it helps to create a strong sense of ownership and engagement in communities. Certainly we have seen the benefits of this in the past number of years, especially in my own county of Mayo in relation to the valuable projects that have been delivered. One area in relation to themes and priorities is increasing our infrastructure and connectivity and ensuring people have access. I know the Minister has done great work in the connected hubs and the remote working hubs as we broaden the opportunities for people to work remotely. Certainly around the infrastructure piece in rural areas we need to continue to ensure that people can set up businesses, can be entrepreneurs and can live and work in smaller towns and villages.
Second, the promotion of energy efficiency, renewable energy sources and environmentally friendly practices within each community is also an important theme we should look towards enhancing within the town and village renewal scheme.
I compliment the Minister on her approach. Without doubt the bottom-up approach is the correct one, recognising the wisdom of the community and the local knowledge that exists in every community and putting to use that local knowledge to improve the situation for everybody all round. As I said before, we are now a bigger community but one can be isolated in a big community as well as in a small community. I ask the Minister to continue to do everything possible to encourage new entrants, new bodies, into the arena as it were, and to ensure she continues to provide the basic infrastructure that can be utilised in the expansion of the activity she has so rightly initiated.
I compliment the work the Minister and her Department are doing in this area. The Minister is right when she says that local communities should have a voice. However, there are areas where local communities do not have a voice because there is no local organisation or community council or whatever established. If that is the case, that community loses out and quite often it might be the less prosperous communities that are involved here. Can the Minister tell me whether or not her Department or herself are looking at this area of community development where there are no community organisations established, to identify and maybe put in place a mechanism where these organisations can be encouraged and supported? There is also the issue of, and we spoke about men's sheds earlier, the administrative costs and other kinds of legal issues that community organisations have to be aware of now in order to protect their members and to go about their business properly, such as establishing themselves as companies, having charitable status and so forth.
I acknowledge what all of the Deputies have said. As they know we have the community centres fund and that was a very successful fund. It was initially a fund of €15 million but the demand was so much that we increased that to more than €40 million in allocations. In fact the applications that came in for that particular fund were for more than €70 million. A lot of the applications were actually for energy efficiency projects, such as replacing the heat system in community halls. That gives an indication of the commitment out there and that communities know exactly what needs to be done. I was glad to see that come in and that work has all started now.
Through our Tidy Towns initiative there is a lot of focus on biodiversity as well. Also the broadband connection points, the BCPs, were mentioned and the broadband officers. I met them last week. They have done a huge amount of work in local authorities in fairness to them and I would like to say they have made things happen and have knocked down the barriers because sometimes there are investors coming in, there are people who want to set up businesses and there are barriers and they have managed to do a huge amount of work making sure that rural areas have the connectivity they need. In terms of the communities that are setting up, we have SICAP funding to help new communities and to help social inclusion and again that support is available for those who want to set up. I absolutely agree and I continue to prioritise the importance of that engagement with people on the ground.
