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Seanad Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 19 Nov 2014

Vol. 235 No. 11

Report of Commission for the Economic Development of Rural Areas: Statements

I welcome the Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy Ann Phelan, to the House. It is her first time here and I wish her well in her new portfolio. I have no doubt she will do a wonderful job in it.

I welcome the opportunity to address the House on my role as the Minister of State with responsibility for the implementation of the report of the Commission for the Economic Development of Rural Areas, more generally known as the CEDRA report. Coming from a rural community, I have a strong and personal interest in energising rural communities. I was very honoured and privileged to have been given the job four months ago of overseeing the implementation of this report. I also want to reiterate that rural communities have the Government's full commitment to doing all it can to support job creation and to developing vibrant, dynamic rural economies and communities.

The report, commissioned in September 2012 by the then Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Phil Hogan, and the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy Simon Coveney, was designed to provide the Government with the information necessary to support policy and policy implementation frameworks that will work for the economic development of rural communities.

Throughout 2013, the commission and its chair, Mr. Pat Spillane, worked tirelessly, travelling the length and breadth of Ireland to ensure anyone who wanted to contribute to this report was facilitated to do so. As part of its work, the commission sought and considered the views of the public and stakeholders, hosting general public meetings, town hall meetings and meetings with key stakeholders, leaders of the business community and key experts. In total, over 100 meetings were held and approximately 1,000 contributions were made to the commission. To my knowledge, it was one of the most substantial and active public consultation processes conducted in recent times. This extensive level of consultation gives me confidence that the strong messages in the report reflect the knowledge and experience of people who live and work in rural Ireland and have their support.

The report itself took a multisectorial approach and contains 34 recommendations designed to support the medium-term economic development of rural areas for the period to 2025. These cover actions to be taken on enterprise development, tourism, broadband, rural town stimuli, artisan foods and beverages, social enterprise, creative industry, availability of finance, capacity building and skills, regional roads, rural transport, water services, the marine sector and renewable energy.

I accept the report's finding that generally rural areas and small towns did not benefit to the same extent as larger towns from the Celtic tiger boom. The report showed rural areas were particularly affected by the deep economic crisis. They experienced an increase in unemployment of 192% between 2006 and 2011, compared to 114% in urban areas. Small towns also experienced a drop in population, a major fall-off in economic activity and high youth migration and emigration. The impact is still visible nationwide with closed shops, the steady flow of emigrants and the resulting impact on community and cultural life. Any Member from a rural area will know when driving to Dublin of the serious decline of many towns. Equally, there is very mixed evidence on the extent to which rural areas are experiencing any of the current uplift. Some towns are beginning to benefit from the bounce back but my personal experience is that this is not the reality felt by a great majority of rural areas.

Vibrant rural areas are essential to the national economy. They have real potential which is not being fully realised and they need specific support if they are to achieve this potential. CEDRA was clear that rural areas are not looking for a hand-out but they most definitely need a hand-up if they are to continue to contribute to and benefit from, to the maximum extent possible, national economic development and well-being. This report is not a whinge about the lack of facilities in rural areas. It is about realising and capturing the potential of rural towns and areas.

The CEDRA report is a multisectorial plan. Key to its successful implementation is the achievement of a more co-ordinated and integrated approach to the wide variety of issues raised and the delivery of the services necessary to energise rural communities. It is also vital all Departments and support agencies are fully aware of the needs of rural communities and, as far as possible, that agency plans are tailored to provide the necessary support and assistance.

On this latter message, since I came into office, I have been working to ensure that all new policies and strategies are being rural-proofed in a very meaningful way. I have already asked that this be done for the new policy statement on entrepreneurship and for the forthcoming planning and development Bill. I have also written to all Departments and agencies asking them to ensure the needs of rural areas are specifically and strategically considered when new policies or strategies are being considered. This is a timely request as all State bodies are currently developing their new three-year strategy statements for the period 2015 to 2017.

In addition, I have met and made my views known on this issue at meetings with ministerial colleagues and with officials from IDA Ireland, Enterprise lreland, Teagasc, Bord Bia, local authorities, the local enterprise offices, LEOs, and now the local community development committee, LCDC, structure as well. This element of my work will continue as further meetings and engagements are lined up.

On the second message, I believe that integrating different strands together, as suggested by the Commission for the Economic Development of Rural Areas, CEDRA, will give us an improved process. Therefore, I have now established and am chairing a high level interdepartmental group, IDG, which is tasked with implementing the CEDRA report. The CEDRA IDG includes all the main departmental actors and to date we have had two meetings, with the third scheduled for early December.

This group has already carried out an initial evaluation of each recommendation and has provided me with a detailed brief on what is being done. I have assigned lead responsibility for all actions and, following our last meeting in October, we are now finalising a multi-sectoral CEDRA work programme with specific actions and timelines up to the end of 2015. There is a strong reporting and developmental framework for the work of this interdepartmental group as I have to report back to Government, through the Cabinet committee on economic recovery and jobs, on the progress achieved by the end of this year.

A good example of the valuable co-operation and assistance which I am already receiving is demonstrated by the input on broadband which I have received through the good offices of my colleague, the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Alex White. Delivering high speed, high quality broadband is one of the important CEDRA recommendations and access to a fast and reliable service is a basic requirement for rural development. It has the equivalent importance as the rural electricity scheme in the 1950s and 1960s and the change that made in rural Ireland. The roll-out of broadband will have the same effect as the roll-out of electricity in rural areas.

I am very pleased to see that practical and time-bound actions are now being taken to deliver on one of this Government's priorities for the period 2014 to 2016, namely, to provide a State-led broadband investment package for rural areas under the national broadband plan. Work is already under way on this project to identify and map the areas to be covered. Next week, the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy White, will publish, for public consultation, an interactive map showing the areas of the country that by the end of 2016 will have access to high speed broadband through commercial investments, as well as those parts which will require State intervention to ensure availability of such a service. This will be complemented by a series of public events to alert rural communities to the plans. By next summer the comprehensive strategy with timelines will be published and issued for public consultation and it is expected that the procurement process will be well under way by the end of next year.

This investment is essential if rural communities are to survive and thrive. In this day and age, broadband is no longer a "nice-to-have" service but is instead a critical piece of infrastructure for the economic development of rural areas. A quality and robust service is absolutely essential if these areas are not to lag even further behind. For that reason, one of my priorities was to get a comprehensive brief on developments in this area. I was very glad to see the developments being planned by this Government and I will continue to actively monitor this area as part of the CEDRA implementation process.

Another CEDRA issue on which progress has been made is illustrated by the rural transport programme. I have experienced at first hand how this programme has succeeded in developing services used by rural communities to gain better access to medical and educational services and to help combat rural isolation and loneliness. The number of services and routes has increased from 40,000 in 2003 to 224,000 in 2013 while the number of passengers has risen from 151,000 to 1.7 million over the same period. These provide a valuable lifeline for rural areas and the alignment of these services to provide better access to employment, education and health services is critical for rural areas. The types of integrated and co-ordinated action which CEDRA recommends is an example of this rural transport system. The rural transport programme is undergoing a restructuring process which is designed to deliver administrative efficiencies and a new role for local authorities in addressing transport needs.

I also welcome the fact that the National Transport Authority has introduced a licensing scheme for rural hackney services which is designed to allow new localised services to be introduced where there is an identified lack of availability of such services. I am confident that these initiatives will provide a solid foundation on which we can continue to build improved transport services in rural areas.

Another area of relevance is social enterprise. This is a broad work area covering many enterprises. These areas are primarily distinguished by the fact that any income generated is generally reinvested in the social enterprise itself, which is the social objective. One such area is social farming where people from disadvantaged groups are invited to participate in the activities of a working farm. It provides a novel social support service to improve health and also support farm diversification. The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy Coveney, and the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, and I have been working with the social farming across borders project to publicise these initiatives which provide opportunities for inclusion and reconnection between farmers, their community and disadvantaged groups. It also plays a major role in increasing self-esteem and improving health and well-being. It links up the Department of Heath and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and our intention is that it will also feed into the corporate social sustainability element of Origin Green. We are jointly launching the social farming guidelines booklet on 26 November. This is the type of cross-government, integrated thinking which is recommended by the CEDRA report and I am very anxious that I promote this.

Besides co-ordinating the implementation of the multi-sectoral CEDRA programme, I am in the process of identifying a few priority areas which I hope to pursue to energise rural areas and to show by best practice examples what can be achieved when communities and State enterprise agencies work together in a co-ordinated approach. I have asked a sub-group of the CEDRA IDG to develop, from within their combined resources, a number of proposals with clear, implementable actions which will assist the economic development of rural towns and their hinterlands. To help stimulate these proposals, I have been able to secure an allocation of €1 million in the 2015 budget for the establishment of a rural innovation and development fund to support innovative and small scale pilot initiatives under the CEDRA report. My intention is to pilot a small number of initiatives so as to assess their viability and effectiveness in creating employment in rural areas in the short to medium term.

Work on these proposals is progressing well and my expectations are that well-advanced proposals will be brought to the next CEDRA meeting in December.

This funding is only part of a wider comprehensive framework to support economic development in rural areas. These include major elements of the draft rural development programme, the seafood development investment programme and the wider enterprise, capability and community development initiatives operated by other bodies such as the local enterprise offices, Leader, local development companies, educational training boards and tourism agencies.

My role, under CEDRA, is to capitalise on these resources and to achieve a more co-ordinated and integrated approach to energising and developing rural areas. I feel that in the short time I have been in office I have made some progress. I have shown a clear commitment and statement of intent to progress the CEDRA report and I intend to continue to actively do all I can to energise rural areas.

Now is the time to look forward and prepare to support rural communities to avail of the many and varied opportunities that I am confident are coming down the line. Ireland is beginning to turn a corner and it is incumbent on us to work together with the people of Ireland to provide the support they feel is necessary in order to maintain and develop vibrant communities that have always formed the heart of Irish society particularly in rural Ireland. This is a Government priority. Now that the economy is beginning to recover we must make sure that economic recovery is felt in parts of rural Ireland, and that is my role in the whole CEDRA process.

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit, an Teachta Phelan, anseo tráthnóna inniu. I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Ann Phelan, and congratulate her on her appointment and wish her well. I believe her role is very important for implementing the recommendations of the CEDRA report. I see it as an overarching responsibility across all Departments, as I am sure she does.

I attended the presentation in the Houses of the Oireachtas at which the chairman of the CEDRA group, Pat Spillane, was present. I agree that it is a good idea to have a report commissioned on what is required in rural Ireland. However, I read the report when it was published and it seemed to copperfasten all of the cuts which were made in rural Ireland to broadband provision, farming grants, RDP funding, Leader funding and all of those issues. The report identified all of the issues, but the cuts that were being made ran in correlation with them. That is not to make a political point on the issue.

To develop rural Ireland we, as a Government and as a Parliament, have to ask whether rural Ireland is important in terms of economy, way of life and as a place where we want to live, raise families and work. The answer is "Yes", but it is not simple to join all of that up. Taking my own county, County Donegal, as an example, 30% of people aged between 19 and 35 have left Donegal over the last three years and have emigrated because they were not able to get employment locally. Some of them went to Dublin and Galway, but the vast majority emigrated overseas and that is very sad. The same can be said of many parts of rural Ireland. While there is some economic revitalisation occurring in the country, the vast majority of that is here in Dublin. No one would begrudge Dublin that. It is great from an overall economic point of view. However, the fact remains that rural Ireland is on its knees at the moment.

I believe it was a grave mistake on the Government's part not to have a Minister with full responsibility for rural affairs at the Cabinet table. I believe that the Minister of State, Deputy Phelan, should have been promoted to the Cabinet straight up because there is a need for every decision being made by every Department to be rural-proofed, whether that is the roll-out of broadband, sewerage schemes, funding for roads or whatever.

The commission for economic development could be beneficial for rural Ireland, or for an economist it could be very negative. The economist will carry out a blanket cost-benefit analysis of a road investment and say "No, there are not enough people living there." That is the way the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport and the National Roads Authority operate. They carry out a cost-benefit analysis and the result hinges on where people live. Unfortunately, very often economic decisions are detrimental to rural Ireland. To give some examples of issues people have been raising, and I am sure the Minister of State is well aware of them: there have been over 140 Garda stations closed during the lifetime of this Government; the agricultural disadvantaged areas scheme has been cut; the school transport charges, while not seemingly significant, have had an impact; as has the ending in 2012 of the CLÁR programme to help rural areas top up road grants.

The availability of broadband in rural Ireland is pitiful from a European point of view. In Europe, broadband is available at every street corner and crossroads in most countries. We do not have that here. In parts of rural Ireland there is absolutely no broadband available. I blame the operators for that, but I would also blame the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources. On a number of occasions in this House I have raised a matter where there was funding available under the last rural development programme for the provision of broadband to 12,500 rural properties which were not serviced. There was €13.5 million coming from Europe and €3.5 million from the Government but the money was not drawn down. It went back to Europe. That was a disgrace and I ask the Minister of State to investigate why that happened. Was a Minister or an official responsible? Whoever was responsible for the decision, whether a civil servant, a public servant or a Minister, should hang their head in shame. Money that is available like that should not go back, it should be rolled out.

With e-learning and e-business, the opportunities to work from home have never been greater, but that cannot happen in rural Ireland. I cannot get broadband in my own house even though it is only 1.5 km from a village, and 90% of people in the parish where I live cannot obtain broadband. I do not think that is right. Eircom and all of the providers say it would be different if they had access to that money and I spoke to all of the providers who could have provided the service. If they had access to the money that was available, they would have provided the service and I have letters to prove it from the suppliers.

There are serious questions, and we have to learn. If anything is to come from this report, it needs to happen right at the top. Whichever Government is in power, there needs to be Government accountability that we are going to proof every decision. That proofing must take place from an economic point of view because the taxpayer needs to have economic accountability and to know that when money is spent it is spent well and not recklessly. We must also ensure that if there is money to be spent, a person living in a rural area should have the same access to State services as a person living in the city. Very often it is more economically viable for the private sector to provide services in a city or an urban setting anyway, so maybe the State should be focusing on the provision of services in rural areas to provide the same level of service right across the board.

I think the Minister will find it difficult to meet the challenge head-on. We could go across each Department and look at the distances people have to travel to get services, but we do not have time today. We could speak about the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, the Department of Health or any other Department. I will give an example. Last year, the Department of Health examined individuals who were applying for motorised transport grants. This relates to the disability allowance, for which the Department of Social Protection is responsible. I know that in three or four cases in County Donegal involving individuals in wheelchairs who needed to be assessed at different times, the Department wanted them to come to Dublin for their assessments. The departmental officials would not go to County Donegal because they did not have enough people to assess on the same day. It is absolutely crazy to ask an individual who is basically paralysed to come to Dublin for a medical assessment which should be carried out by the State in County Donegal. Things like this do not even cost money to repair. The State should have a joined-up policy across each Department of providing the same level of service to every citizen, regardless of where he or she lives. It is as simple as that. The Minister of State will have to contend with this challenge. I wish her well. She has my full support in her endeavours. I know she faces a challenging task.

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I congratulate her on her new position in rural development. The Commission for the Economic Development of Rural Areas, CEDRA, is a voluntary body that was established in November 2012 by the Ministers for the Environment, Community and Local Government and Agriculture, Food and the Marine. The objective of the commission is to develop a strategy to guide the medium-term economic development of rural areas for the period up to 2025.

Rural areas are defined for these purposes as "all areas located beyond the administrative boundaries of the five largest cities". All parts of the country have suffered greatly during the past few years of recession, but none more so than the rural areas that have been badly affected by unemployment and emigration. Unemployment in rural areas increased by 192% during the recession, whereas it increased by 114% in urban areas. Small and medium-sized towns were the worst affected locations. The high poverty index in rural towns dictated that one third of working-age households were rendered jobless. In small towns business after business was forced to close and main streets were left desolate and empty. While our country has emerged from recession, thankfully, rural areas are not feeling the current economic bounce as strongly as other areas. The recommendations resulting from the CEDRA report seek to remedy this. I hope this happens.

The vision statement in the CEDRA report states that "Rural Ireland will become a dynamic, adaptable and outward looking multi-sectoral economy supporting vibrant, resilient and diverse communities experiencing a high quality of life with an energised relationship between rural and urban Ireland which will contribute to its sustainability for the benefit of society as a whole". This objective can be achieved through the support of the Government and the implementation of the recommendations set out in the report. The report contains 34 recommendations to help stimulate rural economies, including: the preparation of a rural economic development policy statement; the assignation of ministerial responsibility for implementation; the encouragement of better joined-up activities by Departments, State agencies and enterprise bodies; the facilitation of bottom-up development of rural economic development zones and a rural towns stimulus programme; the improvement of rural capacity by improving skills and capacity, widening broadband capacity and enhancing services such as rural transport, roads, finance and water; the specific examination of areas like tourism, creative industries, social enterprise, artisan foods, marine and renewable energy to see how they can be leveraged to energise rural areas; and the maximisation of the potential of available funding mechanisms to support economic development in rural areas.

I commend the Government on the work it has already done to further this aim. The CEDRA report was launched in April of this year. The Taoiseach appointed a Minister of State with specific responsibility for the implementation of CEDRA in July. An interdepartmental group was appointed to achieve a more co-ordinated and integrated approach to the delivery of economic services in rural areas. The first meeting of this group took place in July, when an initial evaluation of each recommendation of the report was carried out and lead responsibility was assigned. A clear brief was requested and received from each Department regarding what was being done. The group then dealt with details and timelines relating to more specific actions and to what will be achieved by the end of 2015. The Minister of State and the members of the interdepartmental group met representatives of Enterprise Ireland, IDA Ireland, Teagasc, local employment offices and local community development committees to secure their involvement in the CEDRA work programme and to develop ideas. A sub-group of the CEDRA interdepartmental group has developed a number of priority proposals with clear implementation actions to assist the economic development of rural towns and their hinterlands. The intention is to pilot a small number of initiatives to assess their viability and effectiveness in creating employment in rural towns in the short and medium terms.

I welcome the allocation of €1 million in the 2015 budget for the establishment of a rural innovation and development fund to support initiatives and small-scale pilot incentives under the CEDRA report. The provision of this stimulus funding will greatly assist this task. I welcome the Government's commitment to encourage and facilitate the continued development of rural areas. This funding is part of a wider comprehensive framework to support economic development in rural areas, including major elements of the draft rural development programme, the seafood development investment programme and the wider enterprise, capability and community development initiatives. The CEDRA report has an important role to play in further developing rural areas and helping them to prosper. Recent rural initiatives such as the Wild Atlantic Way and the proposed 1916 commemorations have again highlighted the potential of our rural areas. It is important that we do everything in our power to support our rural areas and help them to prosper. I thank the Minister of State again for coming to House. I acknowledge the work that the Minister of State and her Department have done to further the objectives of the report. I look forward to hearing further details of the progress being made by the Minister of State and the interdepartmental group in the coming weeks.

I welcome the Minister of State. I am delighted to have her in the House. It was great to hear about the enthusiasm with which she has grabbed hold of this challenge. She said earlier that "rural areas are not looking for a hand-out but they most definitely need a hand-up". We need to hear those sorts of words. Before I was elected to this House, I was a member of a partnership in a small town, the aim of which was to bring business and life back into that town. I remember going to a meeting of the partnership and being disappointed that everybody else seemed to be thinking we should ask Dublin to send a State agency down to do things for us. I said "No" and pointed out that we needed somebody to clean the windows of our supermarket. I remember that a young man set up a business with a bicycle, a bucket and a ladder. There was no charge for the water. He succeeded and sold that business on. The person who had been cleaning the windows was coming from outside the town. When I said we could do with fresh vegetables, somebody else set up a little lettuce plant in his back garden. If we telephoned him from our supermarket at 4 p.m. to say we were running short of lettuce, he would bring some lettuce down to us. I mention this because there seems to be a danger that people think the best thing to do is call on the State to do something for them, whereas the important element of what we are doing is to give people a hand so that they can do these things for themselves.

I certainly welcome the report. I am glad it calls for a support pathway to help rural businesses and small-scale food producers. While I do not want to repeat what is outlined in the report, I will mention a couple of other ideas contained in it. The report calls for a target stimulus programme to help rural towns get back on their feet. I have been involved in such initiatives in a number of towns, one of which is Drogheda. When I did a television series in Drogheda, it was interesting that someone from outside the town could ask whether those involved in many things had ever thought of approaching them in a certain way.

The different traders were not talking to one another. Drogheda is a large town and not a rural one.

What we really need to do in rural town centres is to look at a different way of doing things. We should aim to set the conditions so that our rural towns are home to small, vibrant and original retailers. To do this, there should be some incentives for small retailers to set up shops in Dublin, for instance. Walking around the streets of Vienna, it was amazing to see tiny restaurants seating ten people, specialty record shops and shop windows displaying handmade furniture. The Austrians set a low rent and a fixed rate in order for these small and unique businesses to survive. If they paid normal rates, they would not be viable.

In France, rural towns are known as places where one can find an amazing selection of butchers, bakers and fishmongers. Some towns and villages in Ireland are thriving because they have indigenous retailers rather than the chains from the big cities. If our rural towns were able to be home to such a diversity of shops, I think they would attract more people. Customers are now very attracted to this type of aspirational shopping and we need specialty retailers to fill the gaps in the market. Indeed, it could be argued that centuries ago, our rural towns had a mixture of workshops, craftsmen and merchants and we should get back to this concept. In some towns, one sees shops which are owned by families and which are not part of a chain. The report's recommendation that incentives should be given to retailers to occupy vacant properties could really play a part.

To stimulate footfall in our rural towns, we really need to tackle parking charges. We have a massive problem of customers being put off shopping in towns due to over-vigorous traffic wardens and clampers. I went to Edenderry in County Offaly with a television show and it was just so sad to see the big supermarkets on the outside of town with the centre of the town devastated. Senator Landy coaxed me to Carrick-on-Suir some time ago and one could see that the people there were getting together to do something. We should allow people one hour free parking to get them into the towns to shop using disc parking. In Belgium, most towns and cities have a blue zone in the city centres which gives people a maximum of two hours free parking. People carry a simple parking disc in their cars on which they can display what time they parked their cars. It allows the traffic warden to see clearly how long one has been parked. A culture change like this would increase everybody's confidence and would encourage people back to towns and villages. This is a very sensible and straightforward solution, which could simplify and stimulate business and bring some life back to our rural towns.

I will give another example, which I call rural tourism, or agritourism. It is called agriturismo in Italy. The report points to opportunities for rural tourism in many parts of the country as it is under-exploited. It also states that this area is particularly suited to local authorities, which have more development responsibility now. I would like to give one concrete example, the model of agriturismo, which has worked so well in Italy. It is the basic idea of a small farm offering accommodation and a unique experience to tourists. When I was around 19 years of age, I was involved with Comhar Taisteal, a co-operative travel group which did a deal with CIE to get people down to west Cork. The train would take people to the nearest station and the farmer would meet them with his horse and cart and take them to the farm where they would stay. For city dwellers, it was a joy to see how country people worked and lived. This could be done with a small cheese-making farm with a few beds and tourists willing to pay a premium for the experience.

What they found in Italy was that this sort of rural tourism was extremely lucrative. These types of tourists are willing to pay three or four times more for this sort of different or authentic experience. Just imagine the potential for rural Ireland. These agriturismo farms get support at the national and EU levels. We should examine this model in Ireland and perhaps the agriturismo idea from Italy might fit in well with this if it was done in a rural area.

There are so many farms here which could offer the authentic Irish farm experience, where tourist could enjoy something different and even help out on the farm. If that was done successfully in one part of the country, it could provide a national model. Consider the Dutch and the German tourists, who would love to see this type of Ireland. What about all the American tourists who do not want to stay in a regular chain hotel? We have nothing similar to the Italian agriturismo here and the Minister of State could look closely at that model. Would there be funds available to help people along the line?

The other idea I have is that it is worth looking at countries like New Zealand. New Zealand has been very successful in developing and marketing its food products worldwide. We must look at the continuing growth of the agrifood sector in the context of the growing demand from regions such as Asia. We must listen to the customer and adapt our agricultural produce to that demand. The New Zealand dairy company Fonterra makes products specifically for the Chinese market and to cater for the particular customer tastes there. The Minister has just come back from China and I am sure we are moving in that direction but why are companies in Ireland not adopting this approach, innovating and developing similar products to the same degree as New Zealand? I do not think we are tailoring our products. To really compete abroad, we need to do more of this.

As dairy consumption goes through the roof, Fonterra is establishing dairy farms in China. I understand that Irish producers have to import milk to keep up with the demand for products like infant formula in China. Our dairy products are the best in the world but we seem to be lagging behind in exploiting some of these markets. They are just some of the ideas.

Over the past couple of years, I had the opportunity to travel around the country with television programmes and it has been a joy to see the success stories, but it has been sad to see those who have not succeeded, so let us manage to give them a hand up. I loved what the Minister of State said that they do not want a hand out but need a hand up and I think she is the very person who will give them that hand up.

I welcome the Minister of State and am delighted she was appointed to this very important position. We go back a long way as we served on the regional authority together many years ago. Even at that time, she was very strong in regard to the development of rural Ireland.

I welcome the publication of the CEDRA report earlier this year. Along with the Minister of State, I attended a number of meetings with the chief proponent of the report, Pat Spillane, to discuss it. What we have now are 34 recommendations which the Minister of State is tasked with implementing. That is an impossible job and I do not think she will implement the 34 recommendations in the timeframe given to her so it is important she fine tunes what it is intended to do over the next 18 months - the lifetime of this Government.

There was a fantastic report in 1999, which was brought to a White Paper by the late Noel Davern, but which ended up on a shelf. The only thing that was implemented from that White Paper was that it opened up education and training for people in the understanding of rural development. I am pleased to say that I qualified for funding and did my diploma in rural development in UCC as a result of that White Paper but very little else came from it. I do not want to see the same thing happen with the CEDRA report.

Will the Minister of State set up a task force on rural development? I greatly respect every civil servant in this country and in this House. Currently, an inter-departmental group is dealing with this but with the greatest respect to the people on it, when this Government is gone and when the Members of this House are gone, we will still have the inter-departmental group. What we need is a task force which will bring in outside bodies to implement what is in the CEDRA report, such as the business people about whom Senator Quinn spoke and the people who represent rural Ireland and who are elected at local level like the Minister of State and myself in a previous life.

We know what needs to be done, which is implementation of the report. Having meetings to identify the issues will not get us beyond where we are at present. The Minister of State is charged, as I heard her state recently at an event in Carrick-on-Suir, with everything outside the farm gate in rural Ireland. This is a massive task, but I believe she is well up to it. I wish to raise a number of issues which the task force could very well address in a positive and tangible way. I do not believe further consultation or discussion is necessary. We need Ministers and Departments to buy into the initiatives which the Minister of State wants to bring forward and provide budgets for her. A working budget of €1 million has been allocated which is fine and will see some pilot projects established, but in real terms, given what needs to be done, €1 million is a very small amount of money.

We should examine places where this has been done well. Senator Quinn mentioned towns in rural Ireland, and I will specifically mention Westport. A representative from Westport was at the seminar in Carrick-on-Suir which the Minister State also attended. Speaking to that person and others who are knowledgeable, the net result of how Westport has developed is not alone that most of the people who live in Westport and the surrounding areas are employed, but 800 people go to work in Westport every day. This is a staggering figure. Almost this many people leave my town of Carrick-on-Suir to go to work every day. What does Westport have which other parts of the country do not? It has an urban planner, specifically employed to ensure every development in the town is for the greater good of the town as an entity and not just for the individual establishing it. We need to consider this concept for the rest of the country. We also need to examine shop closures. We had an urban renewal scheme in the 1990s, which was referred to as section 83. It did some good work, but many of the ideas and concepts coming out of it did not address the bigger picture of keeping town centres vibrant and alive.

A number of years ago, 2006 if I recall correctly, Senator Quinn visited Carrick-on-Suir. He stated a roof should be put on the main street of the town. I remember people at the function were aghast, and he was called many things, such as a mad hatter, for saying it, but it caused massive debate in the town for weeks afterwards on what we could do for ourselves to give us an extra edge. Concepts and ideas such as this make small towns stand out.

I tabled a Private Members' motion 12 months ago on the revitalisation of rural towns. Among the issues we spoke about was pop-up shops. To this day no legislation is in place to govern them. A local authority turns a blind eye for three or four months until somebody in the town objects. We could legislate for this and it would not require too much. We could also examine concentrated urban renewal, and by urban I mean rural towns. We have seen cosy deals done on planning on the fringes of towns where, depending on who owned the land and how well he or she was connected politically, the land was rezoned. We have seen supermarkets being built outside towns. We have taken initiatives on parking. In my town one has 15 minutes free parking on the main street which allows one to go to the bank, newsagents, butchers or another shop to do a small bit of shopping and get back to the car before one is penalised. In Thurles one has free parking on Saturday afternoons. Precedents have been set throughout the country which could be implemented more widely. Speaking about these issues here will not change the fate of rural Ireland. Many of these measures would not cost money but they need to be implemented.

I welcome the fact Eircom will roll out high-quality broadband in 66 regions throughout the country. I also welcome the fact the ESB has received approval from the EU to roll out broadband to 500,000 houses. However, 700,000 houses, many of which are in rural Ireland, will not come under these schemes. We need to examine how to address this because it needs to be addressed.

We must also consider tourism in rural Ireland as there are many opportunities. I met the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, recently about a concept I brought forward which I termed "the GAA way". The concept is to build a product around the history and culture of the GAA, starting in Thurles, where the organisation was founded in Hayes Hotel, and then perhaps moving to peripheries such as Kilkenny. The concept would involve the 32 counties and ensure places which are not known to tourists could become part of a tourist product. The Minister, Deputy Donohoe, was very interested in the concept, but as he explained it, at present our tourism has two legs of a stool, which are Dublin and the Wild Atlantic Way. I put it to him the third leg should be the GAA way, which would give an opportunity to parts of rural Ireland where the GAA plays an intrinsic role, such as Kilkenny, Tipperary and Roscommon, to build a product from county level to national level. Throughout the world 500 million people claim Irish descent and almost 400 GAA clubs exist outside the country. These include clubs celebrating five, ten, 15 or 20 years of existence. This alone is a product. Will the Minister of State examine this concept? We must build on ideas such as this to develop rural Ireland. I wish the Minister of State well in her task, which will not be easy. From today I ask her to establish a task force. Interdepartmental groups will come and go, but a task force including all elements required to develop rural Ireland will be a success story.

Cuirim céad fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. Táim thar a bheith sásta go bhfuil sí anseo agus tá sé thar a bheith tábhachtach go mbeidh an díospóireacht seo againn. Fáiltím go mór roimh a ceapúchán. I very much welcome the position which has been created and that we have a Minister of State with responsibility for rural affairs as it is very important. However, I must say the budget of €1 million is pitiful in the broader context, if, for example, one considers how much has been spent on consultants in Irish Water, which is €86 million. If rural Ireland is such a priority for the Government, the fact it can earmark only €1 million for it is quite pitiful.

All of the recommendations in CEDRA are commendable, and nothing among them surprised anybody involved in rural Ireland or development. The biggest issues are job creation and service provision. I do not see enough in the report on these and much more needs to be done. One cannot go into too much detail on every recommendation in a debate such as this, but because the interdepartmental group meets regularly and the Minister of State has updates on its specific recommendations, perhaps she could make a document available to us on what has been done and what has not on each specific recommendation in order that we can keep track of it.

The strategy on youth in rural areas could be beefed up. There is a lack of facilities. It is great if one is into the GAA or other sports, but if one is not there is a dearth of activities and facilities for young people in rural areas, which is raised regularly in the House as an issue.

I am interested to hear rural-proofing is being done in a meaningful way. Perhaps the Minister of Stage can tell us a little more about how this is being done. What framework is being used? How is it being measured and put into practice? Rather than asking somebody working on a strategy to include a paragraph or two about rural Ireland and calling it rural-proofed, is there a framework for rural-proofing?

I am not as optimistic as my colleagues with regard to rural broadband. On 9 May 2011 a statement was issued by the then Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Pat Rabbitte, announcing a new rural broadband scheme to identify the remaining individual premises in rural Ireland unable to obtain broadband and ensure universal broadband access was provided in Ireland by the end of 2012. We are still waiting, which speaks for itself.

I am concerned that another report will state there will be a time lag and that rural areas will still be trying to catch up, at which time we will already be contemplating the next phase of broadband. The CEDRA report makes specific reference to fibre delivery to rural towns. Perhaps the Minister of State could give us a note on that. What is the plan? Is there a list of the towns under consideration?

A significant issue arises regarding rural transport and centralisation in this regard. Rural hackney licences have been mentioned. How many such licences have been issued at this stage? I do not know anybody who has one, nor do I know whether there is much take-up or how useful the arrangement will be.

Another part of the backdrop is the cuts to the community and voluntary sector. There have been cuts of up to 40% or 50% in most parts of the sector. This has had a detrimental impact. It has had a bigger impact in rural areas than in urban areas. There have been closures of social welfare offices under the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Joan Burton. This has had a big impact in rural areas also. It was a very retrograde step.

With regard to the specific recommendations, there is talk of rural economic development zones. Have these been identified? If not, how will they be identified? Recommendation No. 6 concerns the rural towns stimulus programme, which was mentioned. Has this been developed? If not, when? How does the Minister of State intend to proceed in this regard?

Recommendation No. 7 is on the national spatial strategy. Do we have a national spatial strategy? If so, how will it affect rural areas?

Recommendation No. 8 concerns the new Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland unit. A steering committee is to be set up to address rural targets. Has it been set up? If not, when will it happen? It is mentioned here regularly.

Recommendations Nos. 11 and 7, in particular, point to the elephant in the room in terms of rural development. I was part of a Leader programme delegation to Brussels yesterday. There are very serious concerns among the Leader and local development companies, which are the backbone of most of the development that needs to be carried out in rural areas. Many of the targets and plans in the CEDRA report would need to be linked to those companies. The delegation I was part of met Commission representatives yesterday and they told us they have written to the Government here because they have over 400 questions on the proposed implementation of the Leader programme here that they want answered because they are not happy with the way it is approaching it.

The delegation included members from the trade unions, the companies and political representatives from across the spectrum, all of whom are very concerned with the way in which the Leader programme companies are being subsumed into the local authorities. They believe power is being taken away from them and that there is a lack of consultation on this process. This must be addressed. SIPTU is being stonewalled by the Department, which will not meet regarding the transfer of undertakings and the workers in the companies. We face circumstances in which 36 development companies will be shrunk to 28 local area groups. This almost dictates there will be only 28 companies. The counties most affected will be rural counties such as Galway, Mayo, Donegal, Tipperary and Kerry. Could the Minister of State comment on that? Does she agree with the policy? I actually do not agree with the recommendation in the CEDRA report that we should centralise local development under the local authorities. It is a hugely retrograde step and it flies in the face of the concept of community development from the ground up. It will not save any money.

Yesterday, we met representatives from the European network for regional development, who gauge the Leader companies across Europe. They told the Balkan states the Irish model that we have had until now is the prime model to follow and that every other country should follow it. However, we are regressing due to the changes that have been brought in. This is the elephant in the room.

Is the Government aware of the 400 questions the Commission has sent to the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government on the Leader programme? If so, to what areas do they pertain and how serious are they? Will the Minister of State ask the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Alan Kelly, to consider seriously the other botch-up by his predecessor, Mr. Phil Hogan, namely, the downgrading and dismantling of the Leader sector and local development companies? I have many more questions. I hope to write to the Minister of State and put them to her in due course. Perhaps we will have more debates on rural affairs.

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Ann Phelan, to the House. The two of us were elected for the first time in 2004 in the same electoral area, Thomastown in County Kilkenny. We were again elected in 2009. When she was elected to the Dáil in 2011, I was elected to the Seanad six weeks later. However, I have not been offered a Ministry since she was appointed Minister of State.

This is an important debate because 60% of our population of 4.6 million is rural. The report is important because there is more to Ireland than Dublin. Professor Suzi Jarvis of CEDRA spoke at a conference in October 2013 and stated:

If we are to pull Ireland out of recession faster, and also reduce the brain drain leaving the country to seek out work, then we now need to home in on the regions. We need to provide 'on the ground' supports for people in rural communities. This is so they can create ideas and spot opportunities to develop enterprises. The positive spin-offs could be new job creation at the local level, taking people off the dole, and generating local wealth that feeds back into rural economies.

As I said, our population is mostly rural. As the Minister of State and others pointed out in this House, rural Ireland suffered more than any other region during our economic decline in recent years. As has been said, there was a 192% increase in unemployment in rural areas by comparison with a 114% increase in urban centres.

Many have pointed out what keeps rural Ireland going. People have said that €1 million in a fund may not be much, but it is very important that the Minister of State, who has connections with up to seven Departments and Ministers, lobby for moneys in other areas.

SMEs employ 134,000 people directly, and 250,000 when indirect employment is accounted for. It is just not a matter of big companies such as Google and Facebook, which are necessary, because we should consider also the number of people employed overall by SMEs that employ under ten people each. The Government has tried to support these SMEs. It is important that resources return to rural Ireland. One cannot locate a company such as Google or Intel in the middle of a rural area because infrastructure is required but an SME can set up there.

Financial supports have been announced by the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Richard Bruton, including access to credit through the micro-finance fund, into which €90 million has been placed for small businesses. The fund will result in the giving of loans of €25,000 to people setting up a new business. The credit guarantee scheme will guarantee credit. There is a fund of €450 million and 75% is guaranteed to banks. Therefore, if people get credit, 75% is guaranteed by the Government. Therefore, it may be easier for people to gain access to credit.

The crucial issue, which many have touched on today, is broadband. Unless we can get proper broadband into rural areas, we will not attract SMEs, industry or jobs. The report states all broadband speeds should be up to 30 Mb by the end of 2015. I hope that is not a dream. I welcome the Government investment programme for broadband. Senator Landy pointed out that 700,000 homes may not be able to avail of the investment. It is important that the Minister of State lobby the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources to continue with the rolling out broadband to rural areas. The only major piece of infrastructure built in the country in the past few years has been at Newlands Cross. It is important that infrastructure be built in rural areas also and that roads be improved.

Water is always in the news. Unless we have access to clean water, we will not able to attract businesses. Intel is the biggest user of water in County Kildare. In County Kilkenny, when the county council and IDA Ireland invested €12 million in a new water scheme for the south of the county, it resulted in the Belview plant for Glanbia, which will employ 2,500 people directly and indirectly. That is supporting rural Ireland. It is important, therefore, that infrastructure be made available.

I did not get to mention tourism. We have to support regional airports and get people out of Dublin. We have to support the airports at Knock, Shannon, Kerry and Cork to ensure people come out-----

The Government closed down the one in Galway.

We did but Knock is close enough.

A good CAP deal is important for agriculture. I am sorry I did not have time to finish my points. The Minister of State is very welcome to the House and I am delighted at her appointment. There is a place called Bennettsbridge in County Kilkenny as well so hopefully we will identify a project there for the Minister of State.

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Phelan, who is a colleague of mine. I concur with my colleague, Senator Landy, that the Minister of State had a lot to do and very little time in which to do it. I agree with colleagues who suggest that €1 million funding for her project is not sufficient and she should look for more.

Towns in Roscommon were very badly hit as a result of the recession. I refer to towns such as Castlerea, Boyle, Strokestown and in particular, my own town of Ballaghadereen. We had a beautiful hotel which closed down, including its leisure facilities. A meat factory was closed down and many pubs and shops closed. Too many houses were built during the so-called good times with the result that we have too many ghost housing estates. In one housing estate 20 vacant houses were demolished last week as a result of funding provided at the time by Deputy Jan O'Sullivan who was the Minister of State.

There needs to be a new way of thinking with regard to rates which is a very significant issue. In my opinion rates should be calculated on the basis of turnover and profit and not on the square footage of a building. Some months ago I met with a delegation of publicans from Galway and Roscommon. They told me that this is being piloted at a snail's pace. Some of the rural pubs are paying a lot less and some of the urban pubs are paying a lot more. As the Minister of State will appreciate, the punters are out on the street in Shop Street in Galway, for example, in front of the pubs. These pubs could be the same size of square footage as a pub in Senator Ó Clochartaigh's area which would only have two punters in the bar at night and that pub pays the same level of rates as the pubs in Shop Street. This issue needs to be dealt with as a matter of urgency because rates are the difference between a business staying open or closing and this is happening every day of the week.

The local authorities give no leeway with regard to payment of rates. They are not interested in the alternative. I refer to the instance of the hotel in my town. Fifty jobs could be created if it were to re-open but there is no joined-up thinking between Departments. There should be a mechanism to allow the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation to talk to the local authorities and suggest that the hotel could be given a rates holiday for a year or a year and a half, until its business is established. At the end of the day that hotel will take 50 people off the dole.

There is much talk about the closure of small post offices. A total of 193 post offices were closed down in Fianna Fáil's time. Eleven have closed down under this Government but these were not forced closures; they were closed down because nobody was willing to take up the mantle and run the post office. I ask the Minister of State to bring my recommendation on post offices to the Minister, Deputy Burton. The Department of Social Protection is encouraging as many people as possible to provide details of their bank accounts for the household benefits package but there is no option for people to use the post offices. We need to give more business to the post offices in order to keep rural Ireland alive.

The positive aspects with regard to my town are that we have solid employers and the BMW assembly which has been given funding of €100 million by the EU Commissioner, Phil Hogan. We have the Western Development Commission and we are probably one of the nearest towns to Knock airport which is a selling point. We are developing a tourism package which is branded as Lakes and Legends. I have sought a meeting with the Minister of State next week so that I can bring to her attention that the Western Development Commission is prepared to come on side with us in an effort to revitalise towns. I suggest that we could use Ballaghadereen as a pilot project.

Development levies are far too high in counties like Roscommon. The new building regulations introduced by the then Minister, Phil Hogan, mean that building a one-off house could cost 25% more than in the past. These regulations are not progressive and I ask that the Minister of State should speak to the Minister, Deputy Alan Kelly, in this regard.

In the areas of social inclusion and mental health I suggest that dedicated funding should be provided to the Men's Sheds projects and the rural men's projects. I brought the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Joan Burton, to view one of these rural men's projects in Taughmaconnell recently and she was very impressed with the work they do.

We need to review our wind energy policy and move away from wind farms which are not productive. We will end up with ghost wind farms in the same way as we ended up with ghost housing estates.

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I support the comments of my colleagues about this report. How could anyone oppose a genuine effort to promote and expand rural Ireland? However, we must concede that we have heard it all before. This might be a newly-commissioned report but all these suggestions have been made down the years but sadly, most have not been acted upon.

I will dwell on the broad aspects of how we might regenerate, renew and rebuild rural Ireland. I will reflect upon the word "rebuild". There is a national housing crisis which is almost beyond description in the capital city of Dublin and in most of our large urban areas. However, across the length and breadth of our rural communities there are half-built houses, abandoned houses, derelict sites and unused planning permissions. It is very disappointing that we have yet to put in place a comprehensive national housing structure to marry some of those problems into a singular solution. Rural resettlement programmes have worked quite well but it is not fair to expect that 50,000 or 60,000 Dublin people on the housing list will all want to move to Cork or Kilkenny or to Waterford or Leitrim. However, hundreds of families would be interested in such a move. This is a matter for the Minister of State with responsibility for housing but also for the Minister of State, Deputy Ann Phelan, who has responsibility for rural development.

If we can rebuild our rural communities with people then trade, commerce and job opportunities can follow. The housing aspect must be reflected upon. Did anyone think ten or 15 years ago that we would now be in a position of driving around smaller rural Irish towns and villages where housing estates which are completed or partially built are on the verge of being knocked down? This is a tragedy which stemmed from Celtic tiger excess. Rather than allowing it to remain a tragedy we should try to see it as part of the solution by way of a more integrated national housing policy. This is not the brief of the Minister of State but she must be concerned about the population drift and expansion on the east coast which is a serious problem. I recall one of our former colleagues, Joe O'Toole, speaking on a few occasions about electoral laws and electoral provision and that the constitutional requirement of Oireachtas representation of one Deputy for 120,000 people should be amended to reflect that in some western counties the reduction in population and the reduction in the number of Dáil seats is providing a very unbalanced type of representation for those regions.

Agriculture has always been and will continue to be the most significant employer in rural Ireland. Colleagues referred to the revised and now almost entirely complete Common Agricultural Policy reform programme. I am on the record of the House as expressing disappointment that we did not use that opportunity to make a clear defined statement about the future of farming families and in particular, about the future of small farms and the families who live on them. We all welcome the annual investments from Europe of billions of euro into Irish agriculture. We must be deeply concerned at the continuing reduction in the number of farming families.

That stems directly from Government decisions and European decisions, and we are the authors of those decisions. It is not something we can blame others for. As part of the Common Agricultural Policy we need to decide what future we want for rural areas, including how many farming families should remain. We then need to introduce policies and supports to meet our aspirations in that regard. The report contains many very valid ideas. Securing agriculture is fine, but we also need to secure the number of farming families. That is crucial to the development of rural areas.

The housing issue including planning and other areas are worthy of substantive separate discussions. I wish the Minister of State well. Her role is interesting and the Government made a good decision in appointing a Minister of State to this area. She will have plenty to occupy her and I wish her well. I believe this report is a help but it is only one part of a much bigger picture.

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Ann Phelan, to the House. This may be her first time in the House and it is certainly my first time to have the opportunity to exchange views with her on her portfolio.

The good news is that I echo the welcoming comments made by all sides, including by the previous speaker, about her appointment. It was a very imaginative decision by the Government not only to make the appointment of a Minister of State with responsibility for rural affairs, but also to put Deputy Ann Phelan in the job. That is part of the good news. The other part of the good news is that I welcome the opportunity that Mr. Pat Spillane's taskforce has given us to debate rural issues in the House.

However, there is bad news. I am severely constrained in criticising the Government because of my friendship with the Minister of State - both of us served on the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly. I have tremendous admiration for her and I know she will do a very good job. Senator Ó Domhnaill listed the decisions taken by various Ministries since the Government came into power in 2011 that have severely and adversely impacted on rural areas. I am somewhat constrained in launching an all-out attack because of my admiration for the Minister of State and the mere fact that she is now in situ with responsibility for the area. I wish her every success in that regard. I have no doubt that she will bring her vast experience and expertise to bear. As she comes from Kilkenny from outside a large city, she will understand better than most the challenges faced in this area.

Ireland is not unique in terms of the challenges faced by the decline of rural environments. I often cite the French example. Many French villages that were once vibrant now only have a post office and a bakery. There is no heart and soul to such villages and people are living outside. During the Celtic tiger years enormous pressure was brought to bear on Fianna Fáil-led Governments to change the planning laws to accommodate large multinational supermarkets in out-of-town locations to the detriment of the town centres.

The Minister of State may have an opportunity to respond to this. I believe rural communities are fighting back. In many cases these challenges are being met by imaginative decisions being taken by local business groups in association with local authorities. For example, Carrick-on-Shannon in County Leitrim has become very prosperous over the past 20 years - the Celtic tiger years were very positive for the town. It was probably the smallest county town in the country. When I was going to school it had a population of approximately 2,000 to 2,500 and it is now approximately 5,000, which gives it a certain critical mass. When I was on Leitrim County Council we used to say that if we had 5,000 people in one centre in the county it represented critical mass because it could then be economically viable. I believe Carrick-on-Shannon has now reached that and it is now a byword for pleasure seeking of a variety of different denominations - in other words hen parties, stag parties and goodness knows what else-----

The Senator should expand on that.

----- but the town is doing well.

However, there is a real problem in the centre of the town. There has been out-of-town development with Tesco - of which I am not a great fan. I appreciate it is providing jobs. Ultimately one must be aware that one is meeting people every day who work in Tesco. Even though I might not be sympathetic to the corporate image Tesco presents, I appreciate it is providing jobs.

I am particularly pleased that Irish-based supermarkets such as SuperValu, Centra and others are succeeding in small towns and are surviving. Small businesses are also surviving primarily through the work of the development companies across the country, the money coming from Leader, etc. That has helped to a large degree.

I would be interested to hear the Minister of State outline her priorities for her brief over the remaining time of her tenure and hopefully into the future in terms of how we might address the decline of the centres of towns and villages. That is the challenge for the Minister of State and for everybody else. I would be particularly interested to hear her views on that. Overall I am delighted she got the job. I have no doubt that she will give it 110% and I wish her every success in the world.

It would be an understatement to say that all the diverse opinions and issues that were raised in this House this afternoon are a reflection of the challenge that I have in addressing the issues in rural areas. As Senator O'Neill said, I am largely responsible for everything outside Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway.

I understand how the difficulties we have suffered in recent years and the economic downturn has very adversely affected rural areas. I could choose to see the glass half-full or half-empty. As I am very passionate about rural areas and I feel that rural communities want to take part in the recovery, I choose to see the glass half-full. Rural areas need considerable TLC. I am not being naïve about this. I know that there were cuts and that is the reality of the situation in which we live. We need a mature debate about the expectation of services in rural areas. There must be a degree of reality about it. We can have nostalgia around rural areas, but we have to see the real thing as well.

I have a big challenge and I welcome all the Senators' very good contributions. It does not matter on what side of the political divide one stands provided there are positive developments for rural areas. Rural communities have huge potential. As I visit those communities I cannot impose a plan on them. As we have seen in recent months, if I came in heavy handed and presented a plan, the first thing people would tell me is that they did not want it and they would protest against it. So I have to work with the communities to get them to develop their own plan so that it is not my plan or that of the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine and certainly not a Dublin-based plan, but their own plan. Then they will hopefully deliver that plan.

Hopefully, they can deliver their own economic success through that plan and through the integrated approach the Government will take to put those services down into rural Ireland - all that support from the Government - and establish what can be delivered on the other side. As all Members are aware, the Government in itself cannot create jobs but it can create the environment for those jobs, which brings me on to a point mentioned by Senator Landy. It would have been a plus, had I been handed this brief three years ago, and making it a full Ministry the next time certainly would be advantageous. Had this been the case, I could have had a lot more time to engage with rural Ireland but I can only deal with the situation in which I am at present and I will be keeping my foot on the pedal for rural Ireland. I am now the advocate for rural Ireland, for which the clock started ticking when I became the responsible Minister of State four months ago. That is ground zero for me and as to what happens in rural Ireland, I can only begin to count from that point onwards. I cannot keep looking back but must consider the positives in this regard. Moreover, I cannot set up any new structures but must work within the existing ones, which pertain to the integration supports from the Government and the alignment process to which the Senator referred earlier. I have an excellent relationship with the Leader companies and I intend to see that continue into the future.

The development of the rural economic development, RED, zones is my priority because I believe that if there is sustainable job creation in rural Ireland, everything else will take care of itself. If one has sustainable jobs in rural Ireland, one will have the users for the post office network, the Garda stations and the local shops. I live my life by the motto "use it or lose it" but all the Government's efforts must be concentrated on particular areas in rural Ireland to ascertain what can be delivered on the other side. The Government is signing off on criteria regarding these RED zones as we speak and they will be decided independently. There will be independent criteria for them and that is how they will be decided. In some ways, this will be similar to the former CLÁR areas in that when a particular zone is decided on, the Government will be able to bring down all the supports available to it to establish how to harness the potential of these particular areas and to examine the job creation element. The Government is considering a number of these areas from the perspective of the potential that exists in the hinterland of some of these development zones. This is because when the Government seeks to do something, it will be important to have selected an area that has the potential to deliver jobs. The Government has not decided on the number of REDs yet but this will be done over the coming weeks. As for a targeted approach, we will undertake some case studies and establish what works and what will not work in some cases. I note there also are learning possibilities arising from what will not work and if mistakes are made, we will not repeat them in other areas. I envisage that the development of the RED zones will be adopted and I will work closely with the local authority structures, that is, with the local community development committees, LCDCs, because a bottom-up approach to the community is being adopted. The Government will get the LCDCs to identify their own rural economic development, RED, zones and see how they can take those plans. They then will have the capability of rolling them out throughout rural Ireland.

I must acknowledge that one of the biggest issues in rural Ireland is broadband. Everywhere I go and in each community I visit, the first question and issue to be raised is that of broadband. Consequently, I understand the difficulties people who are trying to set up businesses experience in rural areas and it all depends on the broadband capability. The Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy White, has an extremely good and highly ambitious plan for the roll-out of broadband in rural Ireland. I can only work with that Department, which has a grand plan in this regard and I believe it will succeed. The Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources tells me that people will be very surprised by how ambitious that plan is. They are tasked with delivering broadband access that does not merely last for the next five to ten years. This is a highly technical subject but rural broadband must be delivered and there must be a network that lasts for 30 years at a minimum, for 50 years in the medium term and in many cases perhaps, even for 100 years. The aforementioned Department is working very hard on this monumental task, which also is a Government priority.

To revert to the urban areas, I do not wish to create a "them and us" situation. I do not seek to create a situation in which one shouts across at people in Dublin to claim they have everything, while people in rural Ireland have nothing. I wish to take what are the positives in Dublin and to try to deliver them in rural Ireland. There has been a recurring argument about how the IDA only looks to the very large urban areas and that this is where that agency will deliver the jobs. When broadband is delivered to rural Ireland, the IDA will have much greater flexibility in respect of the companies it can bring there and in some cases, some companies will come because of that rural setting. For example, I refer to the Walsh Whiskey Distillery in Bagenalstown, County Carlow. When that operation is up and running, more than 70 people will be working there full time with a further 25 people working part time. That distillery actively sought a rural setting and consequently, I believe it is up to us and we simply must keep trying much harder.

I also believe the situation in rural Ireland is particularly relevant when speaking about tourism and I will give consideration to a lot of tourism initiatives to deliver jobs to rural Ireland. I heard a presentation yesterday from people associated with the greenway in County Mayo on the number of jobs they could deliver there because of the greenway's establishment. Down across the Barrow and Nore valleys, we are seeking to develop a blueway that will deliver jobs for those communities along the River Barrow and tourism is a huge element to what I am doing.

In response to the issue raised in respect of the post offices, a committee has been set up on which I will sit, albeit not all the time but at intervals, at which will be represented the Irish Postmasters Union, IPU, and An Post and which will have an independent chair. The Minister, Deputy White, will also sit intermittently on that committee. Its purpose is to consider how a post office network can be delivered and what kind of post office network will exist in five or ten years' time. That committee will undertake some good work and will consider issues such as banking, why people engage in banking transactions and whether they can choose to use the post office. It will involve research and looking across all Departments to ascertain what kind of supports can be given to the post office network, under the constraints that exist, to establish how the Government can deliver and retain the post office network. Personally, I am very passionate about the network because I like to retain that face-to-face service, which has been in place in rural Ireland and which people really like and want. However, there is a responsibility on everyone to use the post office. If supports are given to An Post, people must continue to use the post office because that is the only way in which such offices will be kept open. The co-operative societies also are being studied as they offer a highly innovative way of creating jobs and keeping people in jobs. Senator O'Neill made reference to Glanbia, which as Members are aware began as part of the co-operative movement. Consequently, there also are good and exciting ways in which to examine those societies.

There are many varied challenges in respect of rural Ireland and trying to keep it alive.

Let us look at what happened to tourism during the Celtic tiger years. Ireland was not a place one went for value for money. During that period we did not really care about the tourism industry. That was the case for society as a whole, not necessarily the tourism agencies themselves. When the Government came to office in 2011 we realised that tourism was a vital part of the economy and we put the focus back again on tourism. It did not let us down and has delivered. I would like to think that is what will happen in the case of rural Ireland. We will put our foot back on the pedal again and get the Government to focus support in rural areas and as a result deliver on job creation. Post offices, local schools and other services will flow from job creation. We might have to look at services in a slightly different way but we must be mature about what we can expect.

Sitting suspended at 3.45 p.m. and resumed at 4 p.m.
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