In Deputy Smith's case it may have more to do with being embarrassed that the leader of the Sinn Féin party in the House, Deputy Ó Caoláin, comes from the same constituency as he.
The drastic situation in rural Ireland deserves the attention of all Deputies, especially those of us who have firsthand knowledge of it. The Minister made an interesting contribution yesterday and we can all agree that he is passionately devoted to the future of rural communities. In drafting our motion, never once did we contemplate including what is often the obligatory demand that the Minister responsible for the area under discussion be asked to resign.
The Minister is correct in saying that halting the decline in rural communities has not been achieved by any other European or any other modern developed state. He is attempting to halt the Irish rural decline, a laudable aim, by means of a number of initiatives taken by him as Minister in a dedicated Department.
It concerns me that his good intentions and the excellent work being carried out under his Department are being nullified by the overall thrust of Government policies. That is why our motion refers to the Government's failure rather than that of the Minister to ensure that the commitments made in the White Paper are fulfilled.
It is not just the duty of every Minister to embrace the concept of rural development and regeneration. They must actively and positively contribute to addressing rural community needs, to reverse the trend of decline and not just pay it lip-service to it. It is my belief that the socially-progressive objectives of the Minister and many others within his own party are having to take second place to the dominant ideology within the Government, which is driven by what one might for simplicity's sake describe as a right-wing fiscal agenda. It is no coincidence that this is taking place at a time when the single most right-wing party in the State, the Progressive Democrats, is part of the governing coalition.
There are without doubt fundamental differences between the world view of many within the Fianna Fáil base and the PDs. That might be best exemplified by something that the Minister said last night when he spoke of the loss of the old co-operative spirit and the conviction that none of us is an island but that we exist interdependently with one another. One could contrast that with what his colleague, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy McDowell, said last week regarding the manner in which inequality acts as an incentive. He went on to claim that striving to eradicate social inequality would lead to a feudal society.
As many Deputies from rural parts of this country will know, we are not too many generations removed from what was a feudal society. I can imagine that Lord Leitrim and other lords and gentry of his time might have gazed out of their windows and pondered how the enormous gap between themselves and their tenants, or how murdering, evicting or starving them, would spur them on to greater things — in other words, to produce more profits for the lords and gentry. It did spur them on; it motivated Irish tenants to get rid of the Lord Leitrims and the many parasites who thrived on the life blood of rural Ireland. Thatcher tried it in England. Milton Friedman's ideological economic position drove right-wing policies across the world and McDowellism is alive and well in this House. However, just as Thatcher, Pinochet and the Boers are in the dustbin of history, the policies of McDowellism, which are driving the current Government, will also be found there.
I cannot imagine that the Minister, Deputy Ó Cuív, shares his colleague's views or the PD's extreme attitude towards the role of the state. Individual initiative is crucial but private enterprise itself will never be sufficient to solve the problems facing rural communities. I think I am correct in saying that this view is shared by the Minister.
Another interesting issue raised by the Minister was in regard to the use of modulated funds. I would agree that all of these should not necessarily go directly back to individual producers. We made this point during the debate on CAP reform when we argued that the definition of rural development under CAP ought to be expanded beyond measures directly connected to production. There is a strong argument for directing some of the modulation funds into broader rural development and also that this should be matched by national government. The important thing is that all of the modulation funds are ring-fenced to the country of origin.
There is scope to expand the CLÁR programme further. The Minister might consider including district electrical divisions that fit the population criteria but which are geographically separated from other district electrical divisions in the same position. I also believe that the underlying concept of CLÁR could be applied to cross-Border programmes where similar areas of disadvantage are divided by the Border. Of course, I would also hope that funding for the programme is increased in the next budget and not cut as was done previously.
The Government's amendment expresses support for the Western Development Commission but in practice it has ignored many of the recommendations made by the commission. In its blueprint for organic agrifood production in the west, the WDC pointed to the potential for organic production allied to higher value added processing for the export market but this has not been followed by the Government. In fact, it has cut the level of State support, training and support for the organic sector. Many of the recommendations of the WDC on the seafood sector were incorporated in the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resource's national strategy but very few have been implemented as sea landings continue to decline, hampered by the increasing restrictions imposed by the Common Fisheries Policy.
The fishing sector is probably the most neglected and abused sector of rural Ireland. Many who live in coastal areas have witnessed the decline of the industry with nothing done to reverse it. It is depressing when I return to my home port of Fenit to see so few people actively engaged in the fishing industry at present. This situation is mirrored all around the western and south-western coasts. We need a re-negotiation of the CFP to address the terrible imbalance inflicted upon those in our coastal communities.
Population forecasts predict that growth will be further concentrated in Dublin and the mid-east over the next 25 years, with 80% of growth taking place there. Something radical must be done to avoid this imbalance. I hope the Minister is right about decentralisation and that more proactive measures are taken to decentralise private sector as well as public sector jobs.
There is also a clear imbalance in the location of jobs which are created with the assistance of the IDA. Despite the commitments made in the national spatial strategy, the so-called hub centres have not proved sufficient to attract new foreign companies. As Deputy Morgan pointed out, most of them have actually experienced increased unemployment since 2002. The Tralee-Killarney hub is one example. In 2002, there were 3,512 people on the live register. In April of this year, this had increased to 3,906. In Tralee, which is served by a technology centre and an institute of technology, there has been no new inward investment since the launch of the spatial strategy and, it would appear, very little effort on the part of the State to interest foreign companies in the area. Not only that, while the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Harney, has refused to meet with representatives of Tralee Town Council to discuss ways of tackling the jobs crisis, she can find time to travel by helicopter to Sligo to open an off-licence.
One area that is crucial to economic development is up-to-date communications technology. This is especially important in places outside the main urban centres where commerce can potentially outweigh other structural disadvantages. The White Paper noted this and referred to the prospect that the provision of broadband telecommunications might facilitate an expansion of this country's development in this sector, obviously with the view that rural areas would benefit from this. The paper also referred to the liberalisation of telecommunications in the State and suggested that greater competition would lead to a more rapid roll-out of broadband. However, a report from February of this year concludes that this has not been successful. It states:
Ireland has a disappointingly under-developed broadband market. Low penetration is due to high wholesale costs, lack of competition, high retail prices, limited coverage in many non-urban areas, and general low market awareness.
Again, this proves that reliance on the private sector will not be sufficient to address such deficiencies.
Another area to which the Minister referred was the difficulty of securing loans and the role that the credit unions can play where the banks are reluctant to lend to local community-based projects. This needs to be addressed, particularly when one considers how liberal the banks are in regard to certain other practises.
The Minister also referred to the way in which the co-operatives were transformed into PLCs. I agree that this came about when shareholders decided to sell but I would disagree as to the extent to which that decision was made in consideration of all the facts. I have experience of the foundation of Kerry Co-operative, in which my uncles and friends were involved as shareholders. I know that many who were actively engaged in farming found themselves heavily in debt and were compelled to sell their shares because of economic necessity and because they had been pressurised into modernising their holdings and buying expensive equipment.
The growth of the large dairy and food processors has certainly not been of benefit to farmers. As well as decreasing the share of the value of farm produce that goes to farmers, it has altered the nature of rural communities. If we want to see the logical conclusion of that process we need only look to the situation in the United States, where the giant agri-business corporations control the entire food system and where farmers are increasingly becoming contract workers who produce to order. The sector is moving towards corporate farming, with profit before people. That is what the PLCs have done to rural Ireland, they have put profit before the people who set them up and the communities that supported them by giving them their start.
This has been a useful and productive debate. For our part, Sinn Féin will continue to articulate our vision for rural Ireland, in which all of those who wish to live in rural communities are enabled to do so. That means working to preserve the family farms which are the bedrock of Irish agriculture, to ensure that fishing communities have the means to survive and that there are sufficient jobs in other sectors.
It must also mean that rural communities are adequately served through the public services. Rural communities must be where it is attractive to live. Without that the urban centres will continue to swell to the detriment of urban dwellers themselves and to the balanced development of the rest of the country. At the same time we will face the prospect of townlands, villages and small towns that are slowly dying.
