Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 20 Jun 2024

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. The rural regeneration and development fund is a key measure to deliver on the objectives of the Government's rural development policy, Our Rural Future, by providing funding for the development and delivery of ambitious capital projects in rural Ireland. The projects funded under the rural regeneration and development fund are revitalising our rural towns and villages in line with the town centre first policy through planned and sustainable regeneration projects that will drive greater economic activity and footfall, help address vacancy and dereliction and ensure the reuse of heritage and other existing buildings. Towns, villages and rural areas with a population of less than 10,000 and outside metropolitan areas as defined by the national planning framework are eligible to apply for funding under the rural regeneration and development fund.

The urban regeneration and development fund, administered by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, provides funding for towns with a population of more than 10,000 and the five cities and their metropolitan areas. The third call under the urban regeneration and development fund, launched in 2023, provided funding to local authorities to purchase vacant and derelict buildings and sites.

My Department implements a range of capital investment schemes to support rural development. They are reviewed annually to ensure they are aligned with policy objectives.

The Letterkenny cathedral quarter group is working hard on the ground to develop the quarter for the town’s community, tourism and employment, but its members do not believe it is fitting into any of the boxes that would help it get grants and other funding. The Department has provided funding under the rural regeneration fund to purchase derelict properties in rural towns, but there is no similar funding stream for large urban towns. My understanding and that of the group is that the only stream for urban areas is given to local authorities, not community groups.

Just across the Border, funding has been granted under the shared island programme for the purchase of derelict properties in the Fountain area of Derry on behalf of the New Gate Arts and Culture Centre. Will the Minister consider this funding stream or create a new one for groups like the one in Letterkenny? What that group is looking for does not fit into the urban scheme, with local authorities instead getting funding for local areas.

We continue to review all of our schemes to see how they can better fit what communities need. To be fair, of all counties, Donegal has received a lot from the rural regeneration development fund. I do not have the figure to hand, but areas right across the county have benefited significantly. The urban fund is specifically for large towns like Letterkenny. If I start distributing funding into larger towns, there will be less for the smaller towns. It is as simple as that.

I do not know the project in question. If the Deputy gives me the details, I will be happy to have my officials engage with the group. Perhaps the group could look for something under the new community fund, which I launched and has been allocated this year. We are happy to have a conversation with that community group.

I would appreciate that. I have been engaging with the group in recent months. Its members are frustrated. They have been applying for different types of funding but their group has been unable to fit into the boxes they are looking towards. Although they are in a larger urban area, they are looking to the rural fund. Local authorities get funding for urban areas, but surely there should be some sort of scheme to meet their needs.

The Minister has engaged on many previous requests made of her, so I will revert to the group and suggest that we sit down, have a look at this and see if there is any other funding that the group can apply for or if there is a way of rejigging some of the existing schemes so that the group can fit into even one of those boxes.

I am always happy to engage with community groups on trying to improve their communities. The group in question should speak to the local authority as well. The authority will have a great deal of information on particular funding. Sometimes, groups need to adjust what their projects are looking for slightly to match the schemes.

Ireland's digital connectivity strategy is aligned with the EU digital decade targets and aims for all populated areas to be covered by 5G no later than 2030, but this is based on population coverage, which ignores 750,000 people who live in rural areas and cannot get 5G coverage. This does not have implications for just mobile phone coverage, but for 5G services and emergency services as well. What happens if someone is on one of our greenways, breaks a leg but has no mobile phone coverage?

That has always been a challenge in rural Ireland. The most recent meeting of the mobile phone and broadband task force took place on 16 May. It was the first meeting under a new structure, wherein both State and industry task force members attend a single session of the task force. The agenda for the meeting included the standard updates by task force members on the status of their actions under the current work programme and a revised work programme for 2024 onwards. Officials from the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications also presented on the gigabit infrastructure Act.

As many actions under the current work programme have been significantly progressed, the work programme for the task force has been revised and its priorities now fall under the following four key headings: progressing the delivery of quality, secure and resilient digital connectivity; facilitating the implementation of the gigabit infrastructure Act; improving consumer information and experience; and supporting efficiencies across local authorities for planning and licensing. The work programme will be published shortly and will continue to be revised as necessary to ensure that obstacles to the efficient roll-out of telecoms infrastructure, particularly in rural Ireland, are resolved quickly.

In 2023, the task force held two meetings and an annual stakeholder forum. The forum presented an opportunity for State and industry stakeholders to come together and take part in panel discussions and presentations on the positive influence of the task force's work. I am confident that we can continue to build on the momentum established by the first iteration of the task force, and the model of bringing all the stakeholders together in the task force continues to function well.

The difficulty is that the task force has now been usurped by the Department of communications in terms of its own digital strategy, which is based on EU targets. These EU targets are based on continental Europe, where population densities are very different from what they are here. As the Minister knows, the telecoms operators have proposed a unified mobile phone network in the non-commercial rural parts of the country to provide universal coverage throughout the country. This is not being progressed. Furthermore, because we are bringing fibre-optic cable to every home in Ireland under the national broadband plan, we now have the backhaul capacity in every townland in the country. If we join up the dots with the national broadband plan fibre, along with the telecoms operators' commitment to provide coverage, we can make this happen for every rural family throughout the country.

I thank Deputy Naughten. I am very happy to take on board his suggestions but, in fairness, much of the responsibility for this lies with the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications. The Minister of State, Deputy Ossian Smyth, sits on the task force. In fairness to Deputy Naughten, the then Minister, if I remember correctly, we set up the task force in 2016 and it was a great success. It managed to deal with the issue of bridging the gap between the roll-out of the broadband plan and all of those areas that had very little coverage. It worked very well. The broadband officers that Deputy Naughten and I appointed jointly in every county council have been a great success. They have been able to smooth out problems and deal with various issues that arise at local level.

I know that mobile phone coverage is a big problem in rural Ireland. I do not have 5G myself. Only that I have broadband in my house, I would not get calls. I have to use it for calls. I am sure there are more people like me. For some reason, and I know it probably has something to do with the traffic on the system, we need to get better coverage. I absolutely agree with Deputy Naughten.

Things will get worse rather than better because we will see the 3G network being switched off. It is the one on which many people in rural Ireland rely. Our emergency services rely on an outdated Tetra system that must be mothballed anyway. The difficulty is that we cannot rely on the Department of communications. We must remember this is the Department with the Minister, Deputy Ryan, in charge of it but the same Department and ComReg are not prepared to ensure we have decent mobile phone coverage on our rail network. We are encouraging people to take the train to work and use public transport more but we are not even prioritising putting mobile phone coverage on our rail network throughout the country. The focus group reporting to ComReg has the lowest priority. If the Department of communications will not give this priority, the only Department that can do so is the Department of Rural and Community Development. I ask the Minister, through her good offices and the task force, to ensure we prioritise rural Ireland and not the targets that have been set by the Commission in urban Brussels.

Deputy Naughten will be glad to hear I agree with him. Rural Ireland deserves mobile phone coverage. We need it. I am happy to take on board what the Deputy has said and I will arrange for us to have a meeting directly with the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications to discuss this matter further. It is a serious issue in rural Ireland, so I am happy to do that.

We had a discussion on this topic during the previous Question Time. Unfortunately, since then there have been two very serious incidents. There was a terrible incident with the death of Nicole Morey in Limerick, and I send my sympathies to her family, and there was also a very serious incident in my constituency where the armed response unit had to be called. There is now a discussion on the Control of Dogs Act and what is a restricted breed and what is not. Ministers have since commented. I ask the Minister to outline whether there will be a further review of the Control of Dogs Act and what the Government intends to do.

My Department has policy and legislative responsibility for the Control of Dogs Acts and the Dog Breeding Establishments Act. In March 2024, I announced the establishment of a high-level stakeholder group to consider and make recommendations to strengthen policy in relation to these issues. The group is independently chaired by retired deputy Garda Commissioner Mr. John Twomey and is comprised of members with a broad range of experience. The group has been tasked with considering the policy and legislative matters under the remit of my Department, specifically the Dog Control Acts and the Dog Breeding Establishments Act.

The work of the stakeholder group is complex in nature, requiring full consideration of all aspects of the legislation under the remit of my Department and this will take some time. However, in view of recent events, I have asked the chair to prioritise the issue of restricted dogs. This will be the first issue to be considered by the stakeholder group at its next meeting to be held next week. I expect the group to revert to me with recommendations on the matter as soon as possible once it has considered all issues arising.

It is important for dog owners to be aware of their responsibilities and act in a responsible way, not just towards the general public but also towards their dogs. For this reason, I launched a major national awareness campaign in April to alert dog owners to their responsibilities and raise awareness of the dangers that can be posed to people and livestock by uncontrolled dogs. My Department will continue this awareness effort alongside the work of the stakeholder group.

I thank the Minister. One of the issues being raised is what constitutes a restricted dog. At present, the list contains the American pit bull terrier, the bull terrier, the English bull terrier, the Staffordshire bull terrier, the bullmastiff, the Doberman pinscher, the German shepherd, the Rhodesian ridgeback, the rottweiler, the Japanese akita, the Japanese tosa and what is called a bandog, which is a cross or mix of any of the other breeds. It is on this point that my query is. Some have suggested that perhaps it is already the case that the XL bully, which is the cause of much of the discussion, is arguably a restricted breed. Will the Minister shed more light on this? Can it be considered a restricted breed as things stand under the current legislation? If not, the Minister spoke of the review group coming back to her. Will this be in advance of it completing the entire review? Will it come back on the individual matter of restricted dogs or will it come back on completion of the full review?

The group will meet next week and I have asked it to prioritise the issue of the restricted breeds. I have asked it to look at this. The XL bully is a crossbreed of the American bully. It is already on the restricted breeds list. This means people have to control their dogs on a short leash and muzzle when out in public. People who own these dogs have levels of responsibilities.

I have increased the fines for dogs that are not kept under proper control. I have given €2 million to local authorities so that dog wardens have what they need in terms of vans and equipment. There has been a major publicity campaign on responsible dog ownership with advertisements on national and local media in recent months. I am taking this matter extremely seriously. This is why I asked the former deputy Garda Commissioner John Twomey to chair the group. This in itself sends out a very clear message on how serious I am about strengthening the enforcement on dog controls. The task force will prioritise the area of restricted breeds. If it recommends banning these restricted breeds or banning the XL bully, I will have no problem doing so. We just have to work out what the impact of banning will be.

I am glad the Minister has confirmed the XL bully is included because there was some uncertainty about it. The Minister has said it is included under the American pit bull terrier. I welcome that clarification.

This is also about the welfare of animals. In many instances the reason the control of dogs legislation is so important is because of the abuse and neglect of animals. It is also important in that regard.

Will the Minister check with the review group whether there a possibility of a difference in legislation between North and South? The North is controlled by the British legislation which changed recently. Is the review group taking that on board, including the potential difficulties with variants North and South and animals travelling from South to North in potential breach of the northern legislation?

Yes, it will look at that. As I live on the Border, I am aware that there will be a ban on these dogs in Northern Ireland. It has already kicked in in the UK. It will be in place from the first week of July. We do not want to be out of kilter with Northern Ireland. There is no point in them being banned there and having a different arrangement south of the Border. However, we have to tease out how we will police and manage this and what it really means. It is okay to ban things, but it is about how we implement the ban and make sure it is achieved. It is true that any dog can bite a person, but the damage caused by XL bullies happens because their jaws lock and it is not possible to get them off. The history of the dogs is that they were bred to be aggressive. It is in their nature. I have said this before. I absolutely do not know why anyone would want to own an XL bully. That is being straight. They are bred to be aggressive and they are dangerous in my book.

I am not an expert on this issue. That is why there is a broad range of people on the stakeholder group and I have asked them to look at the matter in detail and come back to me with their recommendations. I will be happy to take those recommendations on board. It may mean banning the dogs and taking into consideration that they have been banned elsewhere. We are looking at other countries such as Denmark and France that have implemented similar bans. We will see what we learn from their experience of how those are working on the ground. I am happy to work with Deputies on this because it is a problem we all want to solve.

Does the Minister accept that there continues to be high levels of vacancy and dereliction in many local authority areas? In particular, I raise my area, County Offaly, where the local authority is grappling with derelict and vacant buildings. I acknowledge that €2 million in funding was provided under the urban regeneration and development fund, but I would like the Minister to look at whether additional funding could be provided. I understand that under the rural regeneration fund, €1 billion was provided between 2019 and 2027. I would like to see increased funding for County Offaly to tackle the problem of dereliction.

The town centre first policy is a major cross-government policy that recognises vacancy and dereliction are still a challenge in many rural towns and villages. It seeks to breathe new life into our town centres, supporting the Our Rural Future vision for a thriving rural Ireland. Central to town centre first is the range of support funding, including my Department’s rural regeneration and development fund, RRDF, and the town and village renewal scheme. In 2023, the town and village renewal scheme placed a particular emphasis on enhancing economic and social vibrancy, along with a focus on vacancy and dereliction. In April, I was delighted to announce €20.4 million in funding for 82 successful projects under the scheme. The full list of successful projects is on my Department’s website and includes a number of projects aimed at developing community facilities in vacant or derelict properties. In May, I announced €164 million under the RRDF for 30 projects throughout the country. The fund is having a demonstrably positive impact on addressing dereliction, in particular when it comes to heritage buildings in rural towns and this year's successful applications again included a range of imaginative and innovative approaches to the use of derelict and vacant properties.

Furthermore, over the last two years, I have also rolled out the building acquisition measure to support local authorities in purchasing vacant and derelict buildings for future development for community purposes. This measure has seen the purchase of disused Garda stations, banks, cinemas, parish halls and schools for redevelopment as community facilities. To support the roll-out of the town centre first policy, my Department is also funding town regeneration officers in rural local authorities. These officers are engaging directly with local communities to address how they can best progress the development of their towns and villages, including addressing the challenges of vacancy and dereliction. I have seen at first hand the impact that vacancy and dereliction can have on our rural towns and villages and I remain absolutely committed to addressing these issues and to making rural areas better places to work, live, invest in, raise a family and visit.

I acknowledge that these schemes are positive and bring about improvements if towns and villages are lucky to avail of the funding through the application which is made by the local authority. They are very positive and that is why I am asking for increased funding to be given to our local authority, Offaly County Council. I acknowledge the work of the council's regeneration team, including the regeneration officers who, as the Minister said, have been funded. It is a brilliant idea. It is practical and I hope it will make a difference in counties like mine.

The council's regeneration team in County Offaly has been proactive in issuing notices to property owners. I understand that if the regeneration team does not receive a reply, the property is placed on the derelict sites register, which means the owner will incur an annual tax and eventually the council might issue a compulsory purchase order. However, the focus should also be in the area of preventing dereliction and vacancy ever arising. For that, we need to ensure we have a fully co-ordinated approach. Just yesterday, my colleagues and I raised the issue of the 13.5% VAT rate that is crippling many small businesses, including restaurants and cafés. We could certainly avoid many properties becoming vacant if we did more to prevent them going out of business. That is why we need a co-ordinated approach across Departments, increased funding and for schemes to be less bureaucratic.

We have appointed town regeneration officers in every county. They will engage with communities and with landowners who have derelict properties nothing is happening to. The Deputy and I know well that there is a myriad of reasons that properties are left derelict. I often go into a town and ask why on earth no one is living in those houses. However, there is probably a story behind it. It is quite complex and is often to do with inheritance. A load of things are happening. However, a lot of work is being done on it and the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, has the Croí Cónaithe grant and the living city initiative under his Department. We have a number of social housing programmes, including the social housing investment programme and the capital assistance scheme, and local authorities and approved housing bodies are tackling vacancy and dereliction through the repurposing and renewing of vacant buildings as new social homes. I saw it in my town, Clones. It would do you good to go down a street that used to be full of dereliction. People are now coming back to live in those towns and it is positive.

I thank the Minister for her reply. I reiterate that this could work better and be even more effective than it currently is if there was a co-ordinated approach, such as ensuring businesses stay in place and thrive and that they are supported to a greater extent. To that end, I hope the Government will take on board the need to cut the VAT rate to 9% to keep some of those businesses in place in our streets where they are needed in our villages and rural towns.

We have the same issue with dereliction, as the Minister pointed out, with empty houses. I accept there is a multitude of reasons they remain empty. I understand that currently only six properties in County Offaly have received funding under the vacant property refurbishment grant initiative. We also know from the Irish Independent that only 127 property refurbishment grants have been drawn down by homeowners since the scheme came into effect. That is approximately one in 50 of the 6,300 applications that have been made so far, with just over half, or 3,274, approved since the scheme was launched in July 2022.

This certainly demonstrates the scale of the problem. If there is a low uptake in a scheme then the scheme obviously needs to be looked at, reviewed, tweaked and improved. I hope that will happen with the derelict housing and that certainly could reduce the numbers of derelict houses in our towns and villages.

I want to see my own county of Offaly thrive and for no houses to be left vacant or derelict, particularly in the middle of a housing crisis. We could look at measures and co-ordination is key.

I thank the Deputy. There is co-ordination and it is being done through the town regeneration officers. It is their job to work together through the local authority and to identify funding schemes.

Offaly has not been doing too badly. I remember being up in the supermarket I visited in Edenderry and €12.25 million was provided for that. That is a wonderful project. I visited it myself. It is an old supermarket and has been transformed. Indeed, other funding was provided there are for different initiatives. I have been to Offaly on a couple of occasions.

On funding, good applications always get funding. There is a remote working hub in Killeigh which received €250,000 and €300,000 was provided to support the purchase of a former school retail unit in Clara to develop a multipurpose community space. A great deal is happening out there. If some town is not getting the funding, they need to talk to the local authority and need to engage with it. They need to get an application into my Department. In fairness, we have been supporting towns and villages the length and breadth of this country. It would do your heart good when you go into these towns.

I do not know how it is all happening in Edenderry but we are looking forward to going back to clipping the ribbon on it because I am sure it must be nearly finished at this stage. Deputy Nolan would know better than I would where it is at. There is a great deal of investment.

By the way, there was a suite of business supports for small businesses. I understand the challenges they face. I heard the man on the radio this morning from An Post telling us about the number of online shopping purchases that are being made and that we have to get online and change the way we do business. The centres of our towns are changing because a great deal more people are shopping online. We know that. That is not so much for me but with my daughters, there are always boxes appearing in the house.

Téim ar ais arís go cúrsaí na n-oileán leis an Aire agus go háirithe an t-ionad cúraim phríomhúil atá beartaithe ar Inis Bó Finne le 21 bhliain anois, ag dul siar go dtí 2003. I am hoping that the Minister might be telling me that she might be giving me a day for cutting a ribbon on the primary care centre on Inishbofin, just to follow up on her previous theme. It was identified 21 years ago as a necessity and here we are. I ask for an update, please, on the transfer of land to facilitate the building of that.

I thank Deputy Connolly also for raising this issue. As the Deputy is aware, the land on which the Inishbofin airstrip is located is currently owned by Galway County Council. These lands were acquired by way of a compulsory purchase order, CPO, by Galway County Council on behalf of the Department. Part of the site is intended for use by the HSE for a primary care centre. The transfer of these lands to my Department has been an ongoing process for a number of years and I appreciate the Deputy’s frustration with the prolonged nature of the transfer.

Officials from my Department met with the Chief State Solicitor's office again last week in an effort to finalise the matter. The Chief State Solicitor's office has set a target of six weeks for the completion of the transfer. This is subject to the full engagement and co-operation of solicitors on behalf of Galway County Council in finalising the matter as soon as possible.

As previously advised, I understand there were outstanding legal and mapping issues, including a recent request from Uisce Éireann in this regard, but I understand all outstanding matters have now been resolved. I understand the Chief State Solicitor's office also has engaged recently with solicitors for the HSE in order to progress the onward transfer of a portion of the site for development of a healthcare centre.

In the meantime, part of the airstrip is being used by the Coast Guard as a helipad in the event of medical emergency evacuations. To further assist with such emergency evacuations, my Department is preparing to issue a request for tender shortly for the provision of permanent lighting and associated works at the helipad. It is expected this work will be completed later this year and will be fully operational in time for the winter.

I thank the Minister and I appreciate her hands-on approach in this matter but it is also important always to point out that the CLÁR programme in 2003 identified the need for health centre. That is 21 years ago. Then we had the national primary care island services review in 2017, which again absolutely highlighted the need for a primary care centre. We are talking about Inishbofin, an island of just under 200 people.

I welcome there is now a six weeks' target set. That is the first time I have seen a target so I welcome that. I was going to say that I have persecuted but I have continued tabling questions to the Minister and to the health executive and I am glad that we are making some progress. I am also being told here, which is also good news and I ask that the Minister may comment on it, but I have two letters which are contradictory in a way. One cannot give a timeframe and the next is saying that they intend to appoint a design team in quarter 3 for the design of the primary care centre.

I am glad that the Deputy put in the questions because I think if she or I were doing this, we would have it done more quickly, to be honest with the Deputy. When I started looking at this, it had been going on since 9 September 2003. That is when the Department requested Galway County Council to purchase the land. This went through a CPO process. I will not go into it but the Deputy knows the story better than I do. My goodness me, it is taking a long time.

As a Department, we are engaging regularly with Galway County Council. We have also been in touch with the HSE and we are engaging with them to move this on because I know that the Chief State Solicitor's office has said that it will have a six-week turnaround. I will try to keep the pressure on and I encourage the Deputy to keep putting in questions and I will keep answering them. I will keep the pressure on from my side but I would also say to the Deputy to keep the pressure on Galway County Council because we have to move this on because I hate to see these things taking so long. We will keep at it and, hopefully, we will get it moved on over the summer.

A health centre on an island is a most basic requirement. I take heart in what the Minister has said but I have done that before foolishly. I take heart, however, from the fact that we are being told that a design team would be appointed in quarter 3. I note that that is not in the Minister's answer anywhere. We are getting certain information like a jigsaw puzzle. I welcome that a design team will be appointed in quarter 3 but can I trust that, as the Minister does not seem to have that information? We are all getting little pieces of information. Can the Minister confirm for me in the next reply that a design team will be appointed in quarter 3, which would mean that that land must be sorted out? It is all very positive. The county council acquired the land and it must transfer all of it to the Minister's Department and some on to the health executive. It is not that hard to do. Solicitors are being paid along the way in this matter and targets and time limits must be set.

My final question is to ask the Minister when will she be cutting the ribbon on the primary care centre on Inishbofin?

I thank the Deputy. There is no doubt about it but that we need the primary care centre on the island. My Department intends to transfer a section of the land to the HSE and we have given the Deputy a timeframe on that. I will ask my officials to respond to the Deputy with an answer on the design team as I do not have that to hand and I will not give the Deputy wrong information. I know that we are engaging with them. I would love to be moving things along more quickly but they do not always go as quickly as she and I would like but that is our job to keep the pressure on to ensure that it happens. I can assure the Deputy that I will do that and I know that the Deputy will do that also so I thank her.