Athy gets €6m funding funding boost

Athy has received a boost of €6 million for three separate projects under the EU Just Transition Funding.

Minister for Climate, Environment and Energy Darragh O’Brien announced the funding in Athy Library on Monday including €4.9 million for the Regeneration Training and Education Centre (RegenTEC) in the old Christian Brothers School in Athy.

The funding will go towards retrofitting the 1,613 square-metre building into an educational space focused on building reuse, low carbon construction and sustainable development boosting employment opportunities locally.

The school building has already been upgraded under phase one of the EU fund.

The minister also announced that K Leisure will be upgraded and retrofitted using heat pumps, with rooftop solar set to be installed.

€640,221 will be invested in the project. The facility, which includes a gym and a swimming pool, will be decarbonised . Around 90 per cent of gas-based heating will be replaced ‘with air-to-water heat pumps, alongside upgrades to the building management system, pool heat exchangers, pool pumps, air handling units, metering and control systems, and the installation of a rooftop solar PV system with battery storage’.

A geothermal project in Athy Library will be carried out, with €408,394 allocated to fund the replacement of the existing gas-fired heating system with a closed-loop geothermal heating system.

In the north of the county, €299,600 has been allocated to fund a conservation masterplan near Maynooth at Carton Avenue. The existing park is set to be developed and biodiversity measures integrated.

Minister O’Brien told the Kildare Nationalist that the announcement “really builds on the progress made in Kildare. To be fair to the local authority here, they’ve been very progressive in relation to accessing the funding in Just Transition, in areas which, to be fair, have been affected from an employment perspective. So it’s important that money goes back into the communities that are actually at the forefront of this transition.” 

The Minister, alongside a group including Minister for Agriculture and Kildare South TD Martin Heydon and Athy Municipal District cathaoirleach Mark Leigh, visited the site of the CBS school.

Minister Heydon noted that the transition from peat harvesting toward decarbonisation and renewable energy saw the loss of 80 Bord na Móna jobs in Kilberry, only a few kilometres from Athy.

He highlighted the importance of the new facility going forward with regards to local people seeing tangible evidence of new employment.

In total, there was a €36 million package for 33 climate action projects across the midlands, centred around renewable energy and retrofitting, and aimed at supporting a “sustainable transition” to renewable energy.

The department said the investment ‘demonstrates commitment to: implement high-impact climate actions; accelerate local climate action; prepare Ireland for the impacts of a changing climate; and enhance our environment’.

The minister said the initial allocation was €30 million, but the high standard of applications for investment led to a further €6 million in funding.

Ireland’s Just Transition Territory is made up of counties Laois, Longford, Offaly, Westmeath and Roscommon, parts of Galway and Tipperary and Athy and Clane-Maynooth in Kildare.

The EU Just Transition Fund programme 2021-2027 is co-funded by the Government and the EU, and is aimed at supporting workers and communities most negatively impacted by the transition to a low-carbon economy.

The START scheme is administered by Pobal on behalf of the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications, as the Member State and the Eastern and Midland Regional Assembly, as the Managing Authority of the EU Just Transition Fund.

Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme