I welcome the funding announcement by my colleague, Dara Calleary, TD, Minister for Rural and Community Development of improvement and refurbishment works on Community Centres.

This is welcome funding supporting local voluntary groups to carry out renovations, improve accessibility and also undertake energy upgrades. Community Centres are a pivotal resource in local communities and are extensively used by many groups within local parishes. 

These Centres are particularly important as an amenity for recreational and social activity and often times facilitate statutory organisations providing services at local level.  There is substantial upkeep costs on an ongoing basis for these amenities and it is important that some government assistance is available to help with upgrading and enhancement works.

I compliment all the groups who submitted successful applications and I commend the many individuals in every community who work hard to ensure that there are good facilities at a local level to facilitate community engagement for all age groups. These Centres need to be sustainable and have modern facilities and this fund will be extremely important in enabling such work to be undertaken by hardworking Committees.