Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 3 Feb 2000

Vol. 513 No. 5

Rural Development White Paper: Statements.

Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development (Mr. Davern)

One of the Government's main concerns when drafting the White Paper was to diversify economically and to provide additional income and job creation opportunities in rural areas while cherishing the distinct features and culture of the countryside. We must exploit our natural advantages and potential to the full in the creation of more opportunities for enterprise both on and off farm while maintaining viable rural communities.

The rural development policy agenda is defined in the White Paper as all Government policies and interventions which are directed towards improving the physical, economic and social conditions of people living in the open countryside, coastal areas, towns and villages and in smaller urban centres outside the five major urban areas. The agenda will, at the same time, facilitate balanced and sustainable regional development while tackling issues of poverty and social inclusion.

The overall strategy decided by Government provides for balanced regional development to ensure that the benefits of economic and social progress are distributed throughout rural areas; investment in services and infrastructure; sustainable economic development; human resources development; and a determined focus on poverty and social exclusion. There are also commitments to the preservation of the culture and heritage of rural areas, including Gaeltacht areas, and to protecting the environment.

The Government decided that the White Paper would be published in August 1999 so that the general commitments in it could be reflected in the preparation of the National Development Plan, 2000-2006. The national development plan is the vehicle for delivering the commitments in the White Paper. There is a specific chapter in it on agriculture and rural development with a commitment to public investment of £6.7 billion over the next seven years in actions which directly impact on rural areas.

This package involves £3.4 billion on the REP, early retirement, headage and forestry schemes; £2.1 billion on rural infrastructure; £390 million on rural enterprises, including western development; £377 million on capital investment for food and fisheries and for marketing, research and development for agriculture, food and fisheries; £322 million on agriculture and fisheries development; and £120 million on training in agriculture, food, forestry and fisheries. In addition, rural communities will benefit from the investments proposed in other areas of the plan, such as the £11 billion for employment and human resource development, £4.7 billion for national roads, £6 billion for housing; £2 billion for health and £0.6 billion for regional public transport. Some £1.1 billion is provided in the plan to support indigenous industry and small, medium and micro-sized enterprises. While all areas of the country will benefit from this provision, it will be of considerable assistance to rural areas.

The success of the Government's strategy for rural development significantly depends on the extent to which the institutional arrangements support the process. Rather than creating further structures which might lead to overlap or duplication of effort, the intention is to integrate and better co-ordinate the activities of existing structures and so improve the effectiveness and efficiency of public service to rural communities. A number of the promised institutional arrangements have been put in place.

The name of the Department has been changed to the Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development to reflect its lead role in rural development. A Cabinet sub-committee, chaired by the Taoiseach, has been established, as well as an interdepartmental policy committee. Procedures for rural proofing of all national policies have been introduced. In bringing forward proposals for Government approval, Ministers are now obliged to indicate the extent to which those proposals are likely to impact on the physical, economic and social conditions of rural communities. This will ensure that policy implementation responds appropriately to the needs of rural communities. The effect should be that strategy for economic and social development of rural areas works in conjunction with other policy initiatives, such as the national anti-poverty strategy.

The national development plan was prepared on the basis of the requirement for rural proofing. The chapters dealing with the various operational programmes include sections on the rural impact of the proposals they contain. An essential element of our strategy is the commitment to establish a national rural development forum. The forum will debate current issues, review existing programmes to determine their impact and identify suitable policy responses to rural problems. It will have a wide-ranging membership, including Government Departments, State agencies, the regional assemblies and authorities, local authorities, the social partners, local development bodies and the wider voluntary and community sector. Arrangements are in train for the establishment of the forum at an early date. Invitations have been issued to all relevant groups to nominate their representatives to the forum. I expect that the inaugural meeting of the forum will take place in March.

The rural development fund, also promised in the White Paper, has been provided for in the national development plan with an allocation of £6 million. The fund will finance research, evaluations and pilot actions, where appropriate, to provide information and advice to policy makers. The research should provide critical feedback in relation to such issues as assessing the impact and effectiveness of sectoral policies and institutional arrangements; quantifying and gathering data on trends and issues impacting on the rural community; identifying income and employment opportunities and examining gender and other issues relating to rural inclusion. A provision of £750,000 has been made in this year's Estimates to support projects from the fund.

The county development boards, now being established following the Government's decision to implement the recommendations of the Task Force on the Integration of Local Government and Local Development Systems, will make a key contribution to the integration of policies at county level. This will be achieved through the preparation of county strategies in consultation with, and the participation of, local authorities, State agencies, Government Departments, local development bodies and the social partners, including the voluntary and community sector.

The county development boards will be an essential element in articulating and implementing the proposals in the White Paper. These new arrangements will provide the opportunity to identify and prioritise local needs in a partnership approach between service providers and the local community. The outcome should be that quality, comprehensive State services will be available in rural areas.

The Leader programme has been successful in Ireland. Evaluations of the programme have found that it has attained a considerable degree of success in the achievement of its objectives. Its impact far outweighs the financial outlay. The current Leader programme ends in June 2000. The European Commission guidelines on the new Leader initiative, Leader+, which will operate in the period 2000-6, have been agreed. In the Commission's proposals for Leader+, the underlying principles will remain, that is, a bottom-up process with area-based, local action groups implementing local development programmes. The new programme will contain a major emphasis on innovative or pilot type measures rather than a continuation of current activities. In recognition of the importance of this type of local development, the Government has made a provision of £55 million in the national development plan for funding a mainstream rural development programme.

The strategy set out in the White Paper endorses and supports the objectives contained in the national anti-poverty strategy – NAPS – and will ensure that the overall strategy for rural development is underpinned by a socially inclusive dimension. It acknowledges that Government intervention is required to ensure balanced regional development and to provide a particular focus in addressing social inclusion needs.

The rural context of social inclusion manifests itself in ways that reflect the distinct features of rural life, particularly in more remote areas. It frequently is the result of multiple disadvantage. Economic factors such as unemployment and inadequate incomes, together with the wider social issues of isolation, unequal opportunity and participation, are often compounded by further problems of distance from services and amenities. In addressing rural poverty the target of the NAPS is to ensure that strategies are developed with regard to the provision of services in rural areas, especially those concerned with educational disadvantage, unemployment and income adequacy.

The overall target was to reduce the numbers of those who are "consistently poor" from 9%-15% in the population to less than 5%-10% as measured by the ESRI. The most recent data available in the ESRI's living in Ireland survey show that the numbers experiencing consistent poverty had fallen to 7%-10% of the population by 1997. In the light of this progress, the Government has set a target of reducing consistent poverty to below 5% by 2004.

I am pleased the White Paper on Rural Development has been so well received. In the recent NESC report, "Opportunities, Challenges and Capacities for Choice", the council welcomes the broad approach to rural development adopted in the White Paper. The White Paper represents a new vision for rural Ireland. The structures for co-ordinating that vision are in place. The funding to implement the vision has been provided. I am confident the next few years will see a regeneration of rural Ireland, thanks to the Government strategy outlined in the White Paper.

Mr. Connaughton

I welcome the opportunity to debate the White Paper on Rural Development, A Strategy for Rural Development in Ireland, published by the Department. When taken in the context of the National Development Plan 200-2006 it outlines what is available for investment in rural areas. The White Paper – I have seen many – is like most documents on the future of rural Ireland published down through the years in that it is detailed but it contains many woolly conclusions.

It does not bell the cat. By that I mean it has no spatial policy which identifies areas for actual industrial or service growth outside the existing main centres of population. In broad terms what is involved is simple to explain but difficult to implement. What is needed are rural communities that are vibrant, forward looking and have a community input that will stimulate the inhabitants to progress their own town or village and surrounding areas to a level not seen heretofore. Major changes have taken place in the pattern of population in rural Ireland, some of which are so well documented that people take them for granted. There will be fewer people in rural areas and more in the major centres of population, Dublin, Galway and Cork. It is difficult to know what has to be done to change that pattern. The question has to be asked whether in six years' time Dublin and Galway will be bigger and Mountbellow smaller. That is the bottom line and unless we can change the way people think through the various incentives included in the White Paper it will have been a failure. An all-out effort should be made to change it.

I had occasion to be in rural America, mid-America, and in Argentina with Deputy Penrose recently and I never want to see European or Irish rural development go down the road they went. Suffice to say, if we have any hope under the European model of rural development that is the way to go. The policies pursued by those other countries were fundamentally flawed. Once people leave an area, for whatever reason, it is difficult to get them back.

In fairly large size rural towns down to the smallest hamlets, there is a huge voluntary capacity which is untapped. These are the thousands of people who, every night of the week, attend development associations, tidy towns meetings etc. because they want to make their area a better place in which to live, but they are beginning to get frustrated. One could win the tidy towns competition, year in year out, but unless something more substantial arises from their efforts people will lose faith. While it is important to have a tidy town there has to be a next step and unless we get over the first step there will be many problems.

Despite what many commentators say, Ireland is predominantly a rural country with 42% of the population living in villages of fewer than 1,500 people or in the countryside. Population density in Ireland is among the lowest in Europe, with only 52 persons per square kilometre compared to the EU average of 115. We still have a great rural society.

I accept the lead Department should be the Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development. No matter how we look at this issue for many years farmers will be the anchor tenants so far as rural Ireland is concerned. Given the rate at which farmers are leaving the land, if an area is denuded of population the landscape will be so poorly managed that it will revert to a wilderness. Irrespective of what is done in that area from the point of view of tourism or the environment, unless farmers are there full-time or part-time that aspect will be lost. It is only right and proper that farmers would be at the centre but not exclusively involved. In a short time the number of people from outside who will come to live in rural areas will far exceed the locals. There is nothing wrong with that provided it is planned. The greater the number of people in a parish the greater chance there is of creating vitality.

The number of reports, the national development plan, Enterprise 2010 and all the documentation produced in the past couple of years, amounts to an industry. When a scheme is introduced we spend much time evaluating it afterwards. I do not know if that is necessary.

The spatial policy should identify certain areas, away from Dublin, and build them up in such a way that people will want to live there and also develop the surrounding areas. We have a long way to go and much further than is suggested in the White Paper. Most villages have a group water scheme but 50% of those who live in the border, midland and western regions are not connected to a local authority sewerage scheme. That is far short of modern infrastructural development and a great deal more funding will be required. We had better not get the idea that this White Paper will solve all problems but I hope it will achieve more than the previous one.

There is something coming down the tracks I do not like and the Minister mentioned it in his speech. He said the Leader programme was successful. I believe it was very successful. However, it is difficult to understand that funding to the new Leader initiative, Leader+, has been cut in half.

After all the evaluation I find it difficult to understand. If the Minister of State, Deputy Davern, says it was a great scheme and I say it was a good one, I cannot understand how there is £30 million made available for it from the EU and the Minister of State is providing an additional £20 million.

Mr. Davern

That is for Leader+.

Mr. Connaughton

No, I will come to that in a minute.

Mr. Davern

There is the other Leader initiative.

Mr. Connaughton

That is Leader+. I know what I am talking about.

Mr. Davern

That reflects all the moneys that have come back from Europe.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Connaughton without interruption.

Mr. Connaughton

I do not mind the Minister of State interrupting. I do not mind if I am wrong, but I am not wrong in this instance. Compared to the last Leader programme, the funding has been halved. However, the Minister has come along with another animal, the national development fund. That £55 million fund is generated by the Exchequer. In my innocence, I thought that those two would be organised under the umbrella of Leader+, but I was wrong. The Department has not yet written the operational programmes for it.

It will transpire that the existing Leader programmes will tender successfully for Leader+. For the first time there will be open competition for Leader funding and we do not know who will succeed but assuming that the existing Leader programmes get Leader+, I guarantee the schemes will not be up and running until the middle of next year no matter how it is done. To take what happened in the case of the Western Development Commission as an example, the Minister of State told me almost a year and a half ago that it would be up and running and it still has not received approval. There was £25 million available and 200 projects but we could not give a penny to anyone.

Under what is being proposed, the partnership which ran in tandem in many rural areas under Leader has gone back to the ADM, to the Department of Tourism, Sport and Recreation. I am told that it has nothing to do with the Minister of State's Department now and it will be funded from now on so they will have continuity. However, the multiplicity of current Leader programmes will run out of money over the next couple of months. How will they pay their staff and what will they do with their committees right up to the end of the year and into next year? I acknowledge any money the Government spends on rural development, but why does the Minister not make some of that £55 million of the national development fund available to those programmes? Have we reached the situation, as is often the case, where we set up a new system, it begins to work and before we know where we are, we cut the legs out from under it? That is what will happen to the Leader programme. This is not an attempt to score a political point. I do not know what would happen if I was sitting on the Government benches, but that is what is happening.

I cannot understand the relationship between Leader+ when it starts and the new national development fund, the £55 million about which we are talking. Surely they will be doing more or less the same thing. Has a new quango been set up? Is it a new partnership business?

Unless the Minister of State is able to connect the end of Leader as we know it with the beginning of Leader+, there are about 300 professionals who will lose their jobs and countless hundreds of board members around the country will be twiddling their thumbs because they will have nothing to do. It is nothing short of unreasonable. I do not know if it was ever intended to be so, but that is the way it will turn out. When I hear of this sort of integrated approach, what I see happening is no different to what happened over the years; they will overlap. In fact, they will be like a fiddler's elbow.

I do not see the integration and the so-called inclusiveness to which the Government refers. If one looks down the line they way I see it, there will be an interim period with almost nothing and then there will be two bodies more or less doing the same thing all over again. In addition, there will be the county development teams and that is nothing compared to what is being done by Enterprise Ireland. I do not have time to develop the point but given the amount of money available, why does the Minister of State need to create a new structure all over again? It is bad for continuity. There is a terrible mistake being made if the Leader programmes cannot do what the Minister of State and I said they did in the past, that is, provide continuity. I ask the Minister of State to have a look at it.

Mr. Penrose

I am happy to have the opportunity on behalf of the Labour Party to contribute to the White Paper on rural development. The Minister will be aware that anything which will help to rejuvenate and reinvigorate those areas must be welcomed and the Labour Party welcomes it.

I will not go into the figures which were given by the Minister of State, Deputy Davern, but I will put a couple of critical questions. Will the White Paper ensure a viable future for those people about whom every party often speaks in this Chamber. Will it guarantee equity in terms of opportunity, as the Minister of State said, both between rural and urban communities and will it deliver the real choice as to whether individuals and farmers can stay in, leave or move to rural Ireland?

The Minister would probably accept that the publication of a White Paper does not guarantee anything in its own right; it is simply a strategy document and it must be underpinned by specific, focused and costed policies. The Minister of State has laid out the framework and he hopes to fill in all the spaces in between.

We are debating the White Paper on rural development at an opportune time because the recent protests by cattle farmers were about more than the prices paid to them for their cattle. As our most distinguished novelist, John McGahern, who is also a farmer, has written, it is all about the survival of farming as a way of life and about the survival of viable communities in rural Ireland.

The Constitution as far as I am aware, is the only such document which states that it will be the objective of government policy to settle as many people as possible on the land, and I subscribe to that. That provision can, with the wisdom of hindsight, be seen as misguided because even when it was written in 1937, agriculture was beginning to decline as the major source of employment and output in the developed countries. It was a tough task. It can only be understood in the context of the bitter struggle by farmers to gain possession of the land they farmed and of de Valera's rather idealised view of the moral wholesomeness of rural life. Despite the constitutional commitment, the flight from the land continued and it has now reached crisis proportions with some experts predicting that the number of farmers could decline to one fifth of their present number over the next 20 years. It is encouraging to note that in the White Paper the Government has committed itself to trying to ensure that the maximum number of rural households and especially family farms will be retained and supported.

I welcome the Government's recognition of the problems facing rural Ireland which are comprehensively analysed in the White Paper. To start with the positive, it is encouraging to note that the population of rural areas has stabilised. While the population of remote rural areas continues to decline, the population of small urban areas is increasing. These remote areas are characterised by an ageing population living often on marginal land and largely dependent on income support. The isolation of these people is increased due to a lack of transport, and their isolation often results in their suffering loneliness and depression.

In Cavan-Monaghan, the Leas-Cheann Comhairle and his colleagues were involved, through Leader and partnerships, in the creation of Link, a pilot transport system between Cavan-Monaghan and Fermanagh. I urge the Minister of State, Deputy Davern, to look at that pilot scheme. It works extremely well. It is important to have integration at Government level. I know the transport licence was got through the Department of Public Enterprise, but the Government should make sure the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs, of which the Minister of State was a former Minister, allows them to use the free passes on this combination of private and public sector transport. I am sure he is aware of that already. I see this as a prototype which can be adopted in Westmeath and Longford. It is an important scheme which will immediately eliminate one of the problems identified in the White Paper.

I know the way Departments work, although I was not ever inside them. When one is outside it is hard to understand how they come up with the barriers to prevent sensible solutions from reaching fruition. They must have Ph.D.s in blocking. The role of Government is to minimise bureaucracy and the first thought of civil servants and officials should be how to get the job done as per the proposal as opposed to how to say that it cannot be done. The Minister should think about that.

There are many voluntary initiatives to improve the lives of people, particularly the elderly, in remote rural areas. The Leas-Cheann Comhairle is familiar with one such incidence. They are inadequately funded, however, and should receive greater Government support. In particular, the home help service provided by health boards is inadequately funded and could be greatly expanded so that more elderly people could live in their own homes with a better quality of life.

The Minister of State has already mentioned rural isolation, particularly in farming communities. Sometimes, the planning proposals adopted by various counties inhibit the growth of population in rural areas. The policies of planning officers can often stop farmers selling sites because they want to sterilise the rest of the holding, claiming it is ribbon development and will create an access onto a road. That is nonsense and I support the Minister of State in opposing it. One of the main contributions I have made in public life is to stop planners introducing these sorts of proposals into County Westmeath. A twin-track approach is often adopted by farmers who may have to reluctantly sell a site to remain economically viable but at the same time they may sell a site at a discount to a neighbour's child. There is the huge threat of sterilisation to make sure they will reluctantly have to resile from the commitment they gave.

Mr. Davern

Or, worse still, a family member.

Mr. Penrose

We hammer that point home in Westmeath and I can tell the Minister of State that it does not get off the ground. I am glad the White Paper commits the Government to providing rural communities with access to education, training and lifelong learning and adequate social and other services and infrastructure. There is a great need to provide opportunities for personal development and training for the significant numbers of middle-aged people, many of them single, who have left school early and who may have few opportunities to enter the labour market. I am aware that the Government intends to publish plans for increasing the availability of adult and second chance education. It will be difficult to provide such education in rural areas because of the lack of educational infrastructure. Advances in computer technology have, however, reduced the need for face to face contact between teacher and student. A great many worthwhile courses can now be provided through the lnternet which is radically changing conventional third level education.

There is also the long-established open university, but unfortunately good reception of open university programmes is not always available in remote rural areas. The Government should consider rebroadcasting open university programmes through TG4, as was envisaged when that station was established. The educational possibilities offered by digital television, which will soon be available nationwide, should also be explored.

Due to increasing prosperity, the gross material poverty of the past has been significantly reduced in rural Ireland, though it must be emphasised that it has not been eliminated. A new poverty is now being recognised, however, by social scientists, information poverty. With more and more areas of economic activity requiring information technology skills and access to the Internet in order to achieve job creation in rural areas, particularly jobs in services, it is essential to equip people, particularly the unemployed, with basic skills in information technology.

It is sometimes assumed that older unemployed people may find it difficult to train in information technology but it is important to bear in mind that the fastest growing group of lnternet users in the USA is the over 65 age group. I cannot do it myself, but I might get the chance if I become unemployed.

A programme that has provided advanced technology skills in areas of high unemployment in Dublin has achieved impressive results and similar programmes could be provided in rural areas using the resources of institutes of technology.

The White Paper asserts that it is the aim of the Government to enable rural communities to participate effectively in the structures and decision-making processes that affect their lives. A great deal has been learned and achieved by EU-funded schemes such as the Leader programme in the area of local economic development, and the experience gained from these programmes must be built on. The new regional assemblies are to be assigned the functions of promoting co-ordination of services in their region and to manage operational programmes under the national development plan. I hope this reaches down to all levels because one of the problems we have is an over-centralised system of Government. The tenacity and assertiveness of local groups over the years has achieved this regional input.

Only effective regional assemblies will ensure that the concerns of rural citizens can be effectively articulated and responded to. Over the past 20 years there have been many factors operating at both national and international level, which have contributed to the problems currently being experienced in rural Ireland. Agriculture is no longer the main activity in many rural areas and many farmers have part time jobs. I am glad the White Paper accepts that rural development involves a great deal more than agricultural development. The development of sustainable off-farm employment is vital for the survival of rural communities. The area partnerships and county development teams have built up valuable expertise in the area of rural job creation and their expertise should be availed of in developing job-creation programmes in rural areas. In order to achieve greater rural job creation, a more focused approach is needed to encourage investors to locate in rural villages. This will require significant investment in rural roads and telecommunications. Most of the EU Structural Fund spending on roads has gone to improving the national primary routes, but many rural roads have been neglected and until recently local authorities have not been given adequate funds for maintenance, much less improvement. Many rural roads are subject to greater wear and tear because of increasing traffic volumes resulting from the increasing numbers of people living in rural areas who commute to towns.

One of the problems relates to housing, of which we are all aware. People from urban areas often buy up small derelict cottages and houses in rural areas, but the local people cannot afford to compete with outside buyers. This problem has now reached County Westmeath where derelict cottages are being sold for prices which five years ago would have bought a comfortable modern home in a provincial town.

Greater incentives must be made available to local people to buy and restore derelict houses in rural areas. The scope of the rural renewal scheme must be extended. Indeed, if I might be somewhat parochial, it is inexplicable that the Government could make a decision to exclude Westmeath from the rural renewal scheme, given that it is right in the Shannon catchment area.

Two other environmental issues in rural Ireland that must be resolved urgently are water quality and waste disposal. While there is vehement opposition to the location of refuse dumps, these issues will have to be faced up to as we are rapidly running out of landfill sites. We dispose of 90% of our refuse in landfill, the highest rate in the EU, and this situation is clearly unsustainable. While the proposed alternatives may provide a partial solution, it is clear that the only long-term solution is the slogan of the environmental movement: "Reduce, reuse and recycle".

Income support to farmers should be based on their actual needs rather than on price supports which, as I have always said, inevitably benefit larger producers most. Direct income support can actually be less costly than price supports because it does not lead to the accumulation of surpluses. Smaller farmers must be given strong incentives to revert to sustainable agriculture in order to protect the rural environment that has suffered some degradation from the intensive production stimulated by CAP price supports.

The success of the rural environment protection scheme shows that farmers are willing to protect the rural environment when they can afford to do so. The White Paper promises a strategy for the development of tourism in rural areas in the context of the national development plan. There is an urgent need for such a plan because there is evidence that despite record numbers of tourists in recent years, the numbers visiting rural Ireland may be declining. The main areas of attraction in Ireland are frequently overcrowded at peak times and there is a need to promote areas such as the midlands, the home of the lake district, more vigorously. For many years, I have been involved in the restoration of the Royal Canal in order to make it navigable along all its length. The canal will become a tremendous tourist attraction if adequately promoted.

I am happy to note that there is an explicit commitment in the White Paper to tackle poverty and social exclusion in rural areas in a comprehensive and sustained manner. Research by the Combat Poverty Agency has shown that people living in the open countryside or in villages and towns of less than 3,000 inhabitants are more at risk of living in poverty than those who live in larger urban areas.

Map No. 8 in the White Paper depicts the distribution of poverty and affluence by district electoral division using a composite deprivation index. This map shows that the greatest deprivation is in the most remote rural areas. It also shows that areas of deprivation are found side by side with areas of relative affluence, as occurs in my constituency. It is essential that rural development policies are clearly focused on reducing social exclusion and preventing the creation of new types of social exclusion.

There are many young unemployed people in rural areas who have left school without qualifications and their training and education needs must be addressed if we are not to create a new group of marginalised people permanently dependent on social welfare payments. There is a widespread misconception that with rapid growth in employment opportunities the need for social employment schemes has diminished. In many rural areas these schemes are an invaluable means for keeping people with few skills connected to the labour market and for enhancing those skills.

In considering the future of rural Ireland it is important to bear in mind that the development of rural Ireland cannot be divorced from overall spatial planning and the question of the dominance of our large cities. The White Paper accepts that market forces will favour urban at the expense of rural development, as is clear from recent experience. Difficult decisions must be taken about which urban centres are to be developed and where economic activity is to be located.

I applaud the Government's policy on decentralisation, which I support fully. County Westmeath is in the centre of the country. I ask the Minister to emphasise to his Government colleagues the need to decentralise a Department to Mullingar because many people would love to move to that picturesque area.

Cecilia Keaveney

The fact that we have a Minister of State with responsibility for rural development shows a commitment to rural development which has not existed for some time. Members who have spoken in this debate have all come from the same viewpoint and background. I hope many Members will contribute to this debate because we do ourselves a disservice if we do not contribute to debates on our areas. We often complain that we do not get a chance to speak on issues pertaining to us and our constituents think everything starts and ends in Dublin. This debate is a great opportunity to speak about rural development.

The Minister of State said that the Government's main concern in drafting the White Paper was to diversify economically and to provide additional income and job creation opportunities in rural areas, while cherishing the distinct features and culture of the countryside. That is easy to say but the Minister of State has probably one of the most difficult briefs in this regard because it crosses every divide. It can be easy to solve a particular problem if one has the money to do so. However, he is in the difficult situation of having to co-ordinate many Departments, which is not easy.

In my area we have the three Fs, fishing, farming and Fruit of the Loom – Fruit of the Gloom as it is known at the moment – and we must exploit our natural advantages and potential to the full. The Minister of State has indicated his intention to create more opportunities for on-farm and off-farm enterprises while also maintaining viable rural communities.

Fishing has been a very important resource in my locality. The Department of the Marine and Natural Resources was ignored for years until the most recent Minister, Deputy Woods, was appointed. I congratulate him on his tremendous work in that Department. His work on matters which had been left to fester for 20 or 30 years can be seen all over County Donegal. Infrastructure was put in place and the fishery schools were developed. That has been very important to small communities which rely on this resource. Fishing is a very insecure industry and is often as vulnerable to supply and demand factors as agriculture. We must build sustainable development in the fishing industry. I hope the Minister of State will co-operate with the Minister for the Marine and Natural Resources, Deputy Fahey, on everything pertaining to the marine, including sea fishing and aquaculture development. Fishing is the lifeblood of most coastal rural communities.

I welcome the substantial movement on the farming issue. There have been difficulties in sheep, pig and beef farming, particularly the picketing in the beef industry last week. I am glad that matter has been resolved but many long-term issues still need to be addressed. I welcome the examination by the working group of the allegations of price fixing. I am glad it must report within a three month period.

Farming has been the lifeblood of many communities but the farmers have had a tough time. The pig industry is a good example of what we in the extreme parts of the country are facing. When the Lovell and Christmas plant burned down the farmers had to travel great distances to take their pigs to alternative meat plants because there was no plant in the Border area. They were at the mercy of the producers and processors and had to take whatever money they were given. We should not have to move from the extremities of Donegal. We should not be penalised for living in north Donegal. People on Malin Head and Mizen Head are entitled to have pig farms, access to producers and processors and a decent price.

We must keep a careful eye on the beef industry. We must decide whether we are going to regard farmers as a social necessity in our communities – which I think we do – or as an economic liability, which is what I am sure many people in the city believe. We must ensure that we keep our farmers. Difficult decisions must be taken at times to ensure they are looked after.

Diversification will be a big issue. Perhaps the Minister of State will work with the Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation in relation to incentives. Some areas already have incentives, for example farm holidays, but that does not seem to have infiltrated everywhere. In certain areas, such as mine, it is becoming very difficult to get support for bed and breakfast accommodation, guesthouses, hostels and so on. Many people need a little support to get started in that sector. My area is one of the few places that does not already have those facilities. It would be a means for people to earn extra income.

One of the biggest issues facing rural communities is planning. I am glad the Minister of State has put on record a number of times his support for family members getting planning permission for their farms. County Donegal is working on its county development plan at the moment. We are getting thousands of planning applications in Donegal at present because people want to get their applications in before the change. Many of these applicants are not from the county. I agree with Deputy Connaughton in that we are not against people coming into the county. However, it must be done in a way in which the indigenous rural people are not penalised. They should have access to a reasonably priced site. Some farmers want to make money from selling their land because they are not making money from their ventures. However, we must be very careful in how we plan our development. Many parts of Donegal have not been spoiled because people have not got that far yet.

The Leader and partnership boards have been extremely good. It is very hard to put a financial value on their work. They have enhanced communities with the town and village renewal schemes and have brought the voluntary groups together. Suddenly, things have started happening for the first time in years.

We, in Donegal, have a right to employment. We are one of the only counties facing an emigration problem because people are availing of the Walsh visas and going to America, despite our Objective One status and the national development plan. I ask the Minister of State to do all he can to ensure we continue to develop on a regional basis in the north-west.

The north-west cross-Border group and ICBAN have worked together, assembled priorities and talked to various Ministers on both sides of the Border. Days like today are extremely important for the peace process because if it falls apart now and we lose the peace and stability we have built over the past 18 months, the situation will be even more difficult. In the recent period we have worked with the Minister, Peter Robinson, and other Ministers with responsibility for regional development, and we have been able to move matters forward.

I wish the Minister of State well in his work. I hope he can do all the "rural proofing" and interdepartmental consultation and that it leads to a better lot for rural Ireland.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Deenihan, you have five minutes this afternoon and five minutes the next day.

Mr. Deenihan

I compliment the Minister on bringing forward the White Paper. I feel a sense of satisfaction because I had responsibility for rural development when I was in the Department. I would have had some input into this. I also compliment the officials here with the Minister, one in particular, with whom I worked very closely in rural development. This has made a great contribution to rural development behind the scenes.

I remember my first job when I went into that office was to go to Europe to convince Commissioner Fischler and his officials that Leader II should be a programme for all the country. The impression created before that was that it would be. Various groups around the country became very animated and they organised themselves. I remember sitting in front of the Commissioner and one of his leading officials. He wanted to target Leader II at the existing pilot areas. That would have been a disaster because Leader II has been a tremendous success. The Comptroller and Auditor General's report was published today and we can see that the reaction to Leader II has been more positive than to Leader I in that we did not have the same scandals and collapses, such as Tipperary Enterprises.

Mr. Davern

The Deputy had to mention it.

Mr. Deenihan

It was a well structured and well run programme. I would like to take some responsibility for taking a lot of stands, together with the officials, to ensure it be. When the officials were getting a lot of flak around the country, I stood behind them, and rightly so. I think I have been proved right.

I set up the rural development policy task force after about a year in the Department because I saw the need for a White Paper. If one looks through the records in the Department, one will see that I wrote to Government stating the need for it. I set up the task force in order to produce a vision for the future of rural Ireland. I am delighted that much of what was included in the task force report is contained in the White Paper. The only thing about which I am disappointed is that it was not acknowledged in the acknowledgements and references at the back. There are sections which have been taken from it almost verbatim. I do not mind that but those who sat on the task force, who were representative of a wide spectrum, including education and various groups, would be somewhat disappointed that they did not get recognition for their work.

A number of proposals which came from that task force or policy report have now been implemented, one of which was the tax designated rural areas. That has now been put in place by the Minister for Finance and I complimented him on doing that. Much of the thinking in this White Paper is almost identical to that in the report. The proposal as regards the institutional arrangements is nearly identical and I would like if it had been recognised. I am disappointed for those people that it was not recognised in the references at the back of the White Paper.

Looking at the overall philosophy and policy on rural development, as we know, it is very difficult to define what rural development is about. It is certainly multi-dimensional and involves all the Departments. An interdepartmental committee to look at rural development sits permanently. That is very important because all Departments have a role to play. I take some responsibility for coining the phrase "rural proofing". Wherever a school or a Garda station is closed or where a service is taken from a rural area, it damages that area.

Recently I came across a poem by the great Brendan Kenneally about small places and their demise. It reads:

If life in little places dies, greater places share the loss,

Life if you wish may just be called one passing game of pitch and toss

And yet a nation's life is lived in places like the crooked cross.

It is the same with rural development. If small places go, it affects the totality.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

You have four minutes remaining.