The living city initiative in Cork is confined to a very small number of areas, Shandon, St. Luke's, South Parish, and there is now a need for the regeneration of the city centre area. I am looking to know if serious consideration will be given to extending the boundaries of the living city initiative in order to progress and encourage the development of properties which are currently vacant. There is a huge change over the past number of years in the sense of the development of new offices outside of the city centre area. As a result, many of these buildings are unoccupied on the first, second and third floors. I am wondering if the living city initiative could be extended and included in the review of the overall plan in relation to the future of Cork and the taskforce that is to be set up.

I thank Deputy Burke for his time in Cork last Friday and for facilitating the meetings we had with the CEO of Cork City Council, the Cork Business Association and indeed, the Port of Cork and many others. I found it to be a very useful series of engagements. What is very clear is that the people of Cork through the local authority and others are about to embark with Government support on this whole look at – they do not like the word taskforce in Cork, we use it in Dublin – the future of Cork report and regeneration and rejuvenation will be a part of that. What came up at our meetings last week was the idea of the current maps not addressing all of the potential there could be. The Deputy will understand I do not make budget or tax commitments outside of the budget cycle, but if the whole of this issue was looked at in the round as the Deputy suggested as part of the future of Cork report, I would be willing to engage enthusiastically on any findings that might emerge from that.