I dtosach báire, ba mhaith liom a rá go bhfuil áthas orm bheith anseo inniu. Tá sé go deas bheith ar ais agus ag labhairt faoi ábhar atá chomh gar do mo chroí.
I am delighted to come to the House. It is nice to be back to speak on a topic very close to my heart. Rural Ireland is changing rapidly. As politicians, we have a responsibility to recognise the changing nature of our society and adapt national policies accordingly. Any rural based Senator will explain that working in rural development can be very frustrating, though the rewards can be incredible. The challenge of rural population decline is probably the greatest we face. There is a vicious circle at work in which as more people move away, it becomes harder to maintain and attract services. The withdrawal of services tends to force further movement away from rural areas. We must recognise that farm incomes are in decline and it is not possible for a family to earn a decent living from the amount of land that would have provided one 30 or 40 years ago.
The Government continues to work closely with farm organisations and our colleagues in Brussels to support the Irish farmer but whether we like it or not world markets are forcing major changes in the agriculture sector. While this does not mean the end of farming in rural Ireland, it does mean the rural economy must diversify. In the past rural economies were models of entrepreneurship, diversification and self-sufficiency. The range of skills and professions in rural Ireland at one time was breathtaking. There were farmers, thatchers, tailors, labourers, blacksmiths, weavers, cobblers, doctors, teachers and priests. It would be wrong to think of the rural economy of the past as purely agricultural. As world markets and societies have changed, the economy has changed and many of the old skills are obsolete and have died out. We cannot preserve the past and have to build a future.
A vibrant, thriving rural Ireland is dependent on our acceptance of change which is the reason we must embrace technology and rekindle the spirit of entrepreneurship. Farmers must be encouraged to diversify into organic farming, small food production and agri-tourism, just some of the areas of which one immediately thinks. Part-time farming is recognised by a majority of farmers and their spouses as their future and they must be supported. They have been voting with their feet in this direction. Some of the main problems for young and not so young farmers who farm full-time are loneliness and isolation. In this context, off-farm employment has created an important social environment for them.
Technology brings the world to people. There are great opportunities for rural Ireland in broadband and IT which we must employ to their full potential.
Tackling the problem of infrastructure provision is one of the biggest challenges facing me as Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs. People talk about the chicken and egg situation with which we are now faced in rural Ireland: which comes first – the infrastructure or the population? There are those who argue that there is no point in providing infrastructure in areas with low or declining populations. They argue that one must have a critical mass, a certain level of population, before it is economically viable to provide infrastructure. I subscribe to the other school of thought, however, believing that if the infrastructure is provided first, it will give people what they need in order to move back home or start life afresh in rural areas. The man or woman who decides to move with his or her family to rural Ireland and set up a business is, in many ways, a much more valuable asset to that community than any multinational which may be established in the nearest city 40 or 50 miles away. If the infrastructure is not in place, however, it will not be possible for him or her to do so and, therefore, the dream of rearing a family in a close-knit rural community will remain just a dream.
Last June the Taoiseach showed beyond a shadow of doubt that the Government recognised these problems and that we were determined to work toward practical solutions. Bringing the areas of local, community, rural and Gaeltacht development, not forgetting the islands, together in one Department shows clearly that the Government is focused on communities and that we are determined to make a significant improvement in the quality of life of those living in both depopulated rural areas and disadvantaged urban areas.
The Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs is unique in that it works in tandem with all other Departments. Just as rural development policy embraces all facets of life, the Department's work is closely meshed with that of all other Departments and Government agencies. One of the methods used to progress this work is an interdepartmental committee. In addition, I am a member of the Cabinet committees on social inclusion, the information society, and housing, infrastructure and public private partnerships.
Detailed guidelines on rural proofing were provided for all Departments early last year. Rural proofing determines the likely impact of policies on the physical, economic and social conditions of the rural population. The Government is committed to maintaining the maximum number of people in rural areas and strengthening rural communities economically, socially and culturally. My Department is involved in a wide range of EU and national investment programmes to promote this objective. All the work on rural development carried out by the Department is underpinned by the White Paper on Rural Development, Ensuring the Future, published in August 1999. 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, in coastal areas, towns and villages and in smaller urban centres outside of 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 national development plan is the main vehicle for delivering the commitments contained in the White Paper. There is a specific chapter on agriculture and rural development with a commitment to public investment of €8.5 billion over the next seven years in actions which directly impact on rural areas. This package covers rural environment protection, early farmer retirement, headage and forestry, rural infrastructure and enterprises, capital investment for food and fisheries, marketing, research and development for agriculture, food and fisheries, as well as training in agriculture, food, forestry and fisheries.
As Senators will be aware, I am in the process of reviewing the operations of Údarás na Gaeltachta and the Western Development Commission, both of which come under my remit. I stress that I am not doing this in any negative way but in recognition of the fact that, despite the best efforts of such agencies, job creation in rural areas has not matched either the demand or the educational qualifications of our rural population. Arising from these ongoing reviews, I recently had discussions with the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Mary Harney, regarding rural enterprise. Discussions in respect of these matters are ongoing and it is hoped to make an announcement regarding same in the near future.
The Leader, ADM, CDP and CLÁR programmes are all run by my Department. Each has an impact on rural communities and plays a part in reversing the current trend of population decline in rural areas. Each scheme in its own way focuses on the development of rural communities and the provision of social or infrastructural supports. The aim of these schemes is not to spoon-feed communities or to encourage a lethargic expectation of Government handouts, but rather to encourage bottom-up community development and a real sense of active and vibrant community involvement.
CLÁR, in particular, has put the issue of rural depopulation on the national agenda. If CLÁR does nothing but create an awareness of this as a social injustice, it will have served a good purpose. However, I believe it has done much more. It has a clear policy of action rather than talk. As Senators are probably aware, this initiative is part of the RAPID programme, which seeks to focus investment and development into those areas of the country that, through population decline or high deprivation, tended not to benefit fully from previous national development plans. Whereas the urban areas were selected on poverty criteria, I felt this would be an inappropriate method of selection for rural areas. As a consequence, we picked the rural areas on the basis of population decline. If one looks at deprivation scores in rural areas, it can be seen that those without jobs and those without houses move to the cities. Their deprivation is recorded in the city rather than the rural statistics. It is fair to say that many of the problems of rural areas were exported in the past in that way.
I referred earlier to the syndrome where services are being withdrawn from rural areas because of population decline and of the latter being caused by the withdrawal of services. It is to end this vicious circle that CLÁR is focusing on these areas. CLÁR is neither a new agency nor a parallel agency and, therefore, all of its schemes must be fully in line with the policies and programmes of the various line Departments. This programme is operating through the existing agencies and is not setting up a parallel system, thus obviating duplication and unnecessary bureaucracy.
In 2002, €14.14 million was spent under the various measures introduced under the programme by my Department. That levered out considerably more expenditure in matching funds from other Departments and agencies. I am currently in further discussions with various Departments in relation to other new initiatives under this programme and I expect to be in a position to announce further roll out in the new future.
It is fair to say that if my name has been linked with anything in the past three years, it has been with the debate on the national spatial strategy and the sub-debate on rural planning and one-off housing. I must stress that this was never a debate about houses. The debate about one-off rural housing is essentially about people and a peopled countryside. With the publication of the national spatial strategy late last year, the Government again showed its commitment to tackling the issue of the revitalisation of rural areas. In addition to setting out practical measures to ensure balanced regional development in the country as a whole, the national spatial strategy makes it crystal clear that people from or living in a rural area have the right to work, live and build houses in those areas. This is a strategy that has listened to the voice of the people and is now meeting their needs in a balanced and sensible way.
In many ways, the Government is focusing on the issue of rural development and coming up with practical solutions to the problems we face. There is no doubt that we have a long way to go, but there is a definite commitment and drive to get the job done. However, there are some issues that cannot be dealt with by Cabinet Ministers alone. We have spoken about planning, the decline in farm incomes, the White Paper on Rural Development, Government strategies and schemes but there is one other issue that is difficult to pin down, hard to put a name on and for which it is impossible to blame anyone specifically. It is the one issue which will wipe out any progress Government makes if we do not tackle it.
Put very simply, this issue is mindset, the attitude that the only real places to do business and to develop are urban centres. Politicians can come up with policies which Departments can implement and we can all wax lyrical about the values of rural and community development but unless we can change that mindset, we might as well give up and go home. Planners, investors, business people, developers, entrepreneurs and many others, apart from politicians alone, have the power to make changes. Balanced development, rural revitalisation and community building have to be a united effort.
The problem is bigger than rural Ireland and politics. Rural politicians, service providers and local authorities are not the only ones affected by depopulation. As people leave the communities in which they have lived for generations, our cities and towns are bursting at the seams. Every day city and county managers are struggling to cope with the demand for infrastructure in urban centres.
Rural depopulation and urban agglomeration are two sides of the same coin. Tackle one and one solves the other. We should give workers real options to move out of urban centres. All of a sudden they will be able to afford to buy a house, their children will be able to go to smaller schools and people will get to spend more time at home and a lot less time stuck in traffic. More people in rural areas means the rural community is revitalised. It is that simple. Schools which were on the verge of closure will stay open, the local shop will get a new lease of life and the local bus service will start up again to ferry workers, shoppers and schoolchildren around. On the other hand, overcrowding in urban schools will be alleviated, the drive to work will take 20 minutes instead of two hours and the pressure on housing supply will reduce. It is all so heartbreakingly obvious.
There is little point, however, in the Government providing services in rural areas if planners dictate that people cannot live there, if businesses will not look beyond the Pale for new start-up options, if developers only think of higher profit margins in the cities and if investors refuse to take a risk on rural based enterprises. As the old saying goes, "You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink." We would want to be careful that the well does not dry up while waiting for the horse to drink. It is time for everyone in the country, urban and rural, to see the common position and realise the development of rural Ireland would also benefit urban Ireland.