Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am glad the Minister and the Government are taking an interest in rural Ireland because it has been bypassed for the past few years at policy level. The Chairman and a few of the rest of us went round those areas and wrote a report on them. Much of the apparent prosperity in rural areas was primarily related to the construction boom, which was only fleeting and it left only bodies in its wake. Nothing happened afterwards and these towns are now decimated.

Rural shops are now just social centres for people. Not one rural shop is making a penny. Every one of them is being cross-subsidised. Unless we get a rates relief scheme in place for those shops, or social centres as I call them, they will close. Between Mullingar and Longford there will not be a single rural shop in five years. That includes petrol stations. The only ones that might survive are the post offices that are now linked to the banks to provide financial services. It is important they continue with that. The credit unions should also be linked to the post office system at this stage. That would overcome many of the difficulties of elderly people worrying about their finances in the current climate, where the Garda station has been closed. It is important to promote the post office. It is the one viable measure that can be undertaken.

The Minister is involved in planning. If someone wants to set up a small cottage industry baking bread or making jam, he has to go through the full gamut of planning permission, costing thousands. Why not have a licence system where people could make a submission to the local authority, which would then grant a licence for a year or two and which could be re-examined? The environmental health officers would check on the outlets to ensure they operate properly. We recommended that.

Many rural areas are trying to get back on their feet. There are Tidy Towns committees and community development groups, Irish Rural Link groups and Young at Heart clubs. They are fighting back but when there is a plethora of organisations, no one knows which to go to for help. That is the problem. If they were brought together within a overarching structure, people would know where to go.

Pat Spillane is starting his consultations tomorrow night and I welcome that. Send him down to my own area, Ballynacargy, which is a microcosm of the struggle to survive. We must maintain villages, and I said this to officials in the Minister's Department who vilified me for looking for rural housing that helped to sustain and maintain rural areas. That might not mean a lot to many people. The schools, post offices, Garda stations and the sports clubs will all be wiped out unless the report the Minister is working on comes to fruition. God speed to him on his way. It is great to see someone taking an interest at Government level. I wish the Minister, Pat Spillane and his committee well. I will certainly be making an input into the report.