Minister for Housing James Browne will seek Cabinet approval today to extend the defective concrete blocks scheme to a number of homes in Co Wexford and in Fingal in Dublin.<\/p>\n
It is estimated that there are 39 homes affected in Fingal and two in Wexford.<\/p>\n
The cost of adding both areas to the scheme will be \u20ac10m to \u20ac15m.<\/p>\n
In Fingal, the 39 affected homes are located in: Rush (30), Skerries (6), Lusk (2) and Ballyboughal (1).<\/p>\n
In Wexford, the two affected properties are in Bunclody and Ferns.<\/p>\n
Three years ago the Government set up a grant scheme for homes damaged by the use of defective concrete blocks for properties in counties Clare, Donegal, Limerick and Mayo.<\/p>\n
Sligo was added to the scheme in 2024.<\/p>\n
Chambers to update Cabinet on review of infrastructure regulations<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers will update the Cabinet on a key review of regulations seeking to speed up the delivery of big infrastructure projects.<\/p>\n
It will be carried out by a new regulatory simplification unit the minister has established.<\/p>\n
Minister Chambers will tell colleagues that under existing regulations, a transport project – like a new road or public transport initiative – may require up to 30 licences, consents and approvals.<\/p>\n
These pre-planning processes are taking up to a year for roads, while for waste-water projects they can take between one and four years.<\/p>\n
Museum branch in Limerick<\/p>\n
Minister for Culture Patrick O’Donovan will ask the Government to establish a new branch of the National Museum Ireland at the former International Rugby Experience exhibition centre in Limerick city.<\/p>\n
The property on O’Connell Street in Limerick has been gifted to the State.<\/p>\n
Under the plan, the centre would become a dedicated women’s museum as well as providing space for other exhibitions.<\/p>\n
Regional airport investment<\/p>\n
Minister for Transport Darragh O’Brien will brief the Cabinet on a \u20ac45m investment in regional airports over the next five years.<\/p>\n
The airports eligible for funding include Shannon, Ireland West Airport (Knock), Kerry and Donegal.<\/p>\n
It is expected that a Public Service Obligation air service between Dublin and Derry will also be introduced later this year.<\/p>\n
Junior Minister Alan Dillon’s Circular Economy Strategy is being brought to Cabinet for approval.<\/p>\n
The plan sets out a key target to increase the circular material use rate by 2% each year to reach 12% by 2030.<\/p>\n
\u20ac75m capital programme set to expand healthcare education capacity<\/p>\n
Minister for Further and Higher Education James Lawless is bringing a memo announcing a \u20ac75m capital programme to expand healthcare education capacity.<\/p>\n
The programme will increase places across medicine, dentistry, pharmacy and Health and Social Care Professions (HSCP) – including 461 new HSCP training places and up to 35 extra dentistry places each year.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Minister for Children, Disability and Equality Norma Foley and Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill will bring a joint memo about the HSE Capital Plan 2026.<\/p>\n
The disability services part of the HSE capital plan contains \u20ac43m for the construction of community-based disability infrastructure for disabled people in 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Minister for Housing James Browne will seek Cabinet approval today to extend the defective concrete blocks scheme to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314556,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-314555","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}