*Photograph: John Mangan
A PILOT PLAN to increase the amount of families living in Ennis town centre has been proposed.
Ennis Town Centre has been suggested as a suitable focus for a government pilot project to bring buildings back into residential use by Clare TD Michael McNamara (IND).
Deputy McNamara aired his views with the Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar (FG) in Dáil Éireann on Tuesday. The Scariff native said that many business premises which once had families living over them now lie empty over ground level for a variety of reasons including particularly building regulations and insurance costs.
He stated, “Ennis, like other market towns in Clare and like market towns all over the country, has streets full of fine old buildings where there is a retail unit at ground level and in many but not all cases, they are vacant over ground level. A century ago, there were families living in them. I don’t underestimate the difficulty of converting those back into residential use. There are regulations, there are issues around financing, but it would offer many benefits not just in housing, but also benefits for the environment and for society”.
Irish architects who attended the Venice Biennale, an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Italy, had highlighted how market towns could be reinvigorated, Deputy McNamara told the Dáil. He asked the Taoiseach to consider a pilot project to bring properties in market towns back into residential use.
“It sounds like a good idea to me,” the Taoiseach responded before adding that he would follow up with Deputy McNamara on the proposal. “I’ve already seen around the country a number of buildings brought back into use for residential form, a number of pubs that have been turned into residential accommodation, office blocks in this city that have been turned into residential accommodation”.
McNamara has recently expressed his opposition to plans to demolish cottages in Francis Street to construct a €1m temporary car park. “It would be crazy to see diggers knocking houses in Ennis town centre that were used and can still be used to accommodate families during the worst housing crisis in the history of this county. While I accept there is a shortage of available public parking in parts of Ennis town, Francis Street is one of the few areas where there already is plenty of on-street carparking with additional spaces provided at the nearby Cloister/GAA car park”.
