The Institute of Professional Auctioneers and Valuers (IPAV ) has welcomed the Government’s €30 million investment programme for rural towns and villages.
The organisation, which represents 1,000 auctioneers throughout Ireland, says the news marks a very good start to what it hoped would be a “fuller budget package”.
The organisation’s national president, Eamon O’Flaherty, has made the issue of rural regeneration a priority for his term of office, and IPAV has made proposals to Government in its budget submission for a tax incentive scheme to convert non-viable commercial buildings into residential use by owner-occupiers.
IPAV says the section in the Government’s statement on the renovation of relevant derelict buildings will be of great interest to many country members, dwellers, and property owners in small country towns.
Mr O’Flaherty, a director at Property Partners Brady in Maynooth, said: “The announcement by the Government is a great start. We have long had a major concern about the decaying condition of many rural towns and villages. We would be very hopeful that the Government would add to the initiative with a fuller budget package.
“Already our members have identified 300 properties throughout the country that would be suitable for such a scheme, which would have no expensive outlay for the Government and would be a win-win economically, socially, and politically,” he said.
