Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The committee needs to discuss the issue of spatial planning. The prevailing view of planning is highly urban centred and is based on the spillover theory that if one keeps developing towns, rural areas will eventually benefit by some great process. Oldcastle in County Meath and the Cooley Peninsula on the east coast were CLÁR areas, in other words, areas that experienced a substantial decline in population from the 1920s onwards. Given their proximity to Dublin, the spillover theory is clearly not working.

The simple explanation is that most people do not travel for more than 40 or 45 minutes in a car from their place of work to their place of residence. This is to be seen in Galway where one comes off the cliff, so to speak, beyond Loughrea. I take serious issue with planners who believe the entire west will be developed as a result of development in Galway city. The process does not work that way. On the contrary, what we saw in the most recent census was a complete reverse of the previous trend of rural population growth. We are now seeing a collapse in population in areas located more than a certain travel time from the city. In this regard, distance is crucial but it must be measured in terms of time rather than physical distance. Road infrastructure is very important in this regard and if we fail to address it, areas such as east Galway and west Connemara will be in a very bad way.

I take slight issue with the Chairman in that I disagree with the notion of allocating money on the basis of population. We had a tradition whereby certain things were a fundamental right of the citizen and other things were the fundamental right of the community. During the Second World War, a decision was made to provide every house with electricity, whether it was on top of a mountain or near a town. It was also decided to provide a State-wide telephone service. While the service was slow, people had access to a landline.

The committee should lay out a national typology of basic services to which every household is entitled. This includes a roadway to one's house and access to water, electricity, fibre broadband and a mobile telephone service. Every community also has a right to basic services, including education and health. Obviously, one must decide what level of education and health services would be provided and how local they should be. Sports facilities and so on also need to be provided locally and population should not be an inhibitor.

I had ministerial responsibility for the islands. While it may be an extreme case, we found that we could provide very small islands with the basic services a community would expect to facilitate a decent community life.

I take issue with another point that was made. Having been responsible for creating jobs in rural areas, I am of the view that it is as easy to create jobs in such areas as it is to create them in urban areas, provided one takes the right approach. Some of the most successful businesses derive from rural areas. All of the multinational, indigenous co-operative industries - the major milk companies and so forth - can be traced back more than 100 years ago to Horace Plunkett. These are some of our most advanced indigenous industries and they are rooted to this island. If one takes job years as a measure, they are very important companies. Rural areas have significant potential for further job creation but this will not be possible without infrastructure. I remember when I moved to Connemara to become a manager of a co-operative that it took me a year and a half to obtain a telephone. We struggled against the odds and succeeded. I realised then that a lack of simple infrastructure was a serious inhibitor to job creation. Basic things that people take for granted were the problem, rather than anything in the local area.

I am proud that a high volume of timber lorries forced the county council to replace virtually every bridge in the area because they collapsed under the weight of those vehicles. This occurred long before Mr. Gavin's time and I have no compunction in stating it was one of my greatest achievements because it resulted in all the roads being straightened and all the bridges being replaced. Basic infrastructure is needed. I started at a small level. Other people took over to much greater effect and there is now an industry that directly and indirectly employs 300 people in the middle of what people would describe as the back of beyond.

It would not be in the interests of my native city, Dublin, to concentrate all development in cities because we have serious social problems in our cities. People are being sucked out of rural areas and when they arrive in the capital they cannot secure housing or move around the city because of the traffic. The quality of life in Dublin is suffering because of excessive congestion. In other parts of the country, the problem is that there are not enough children for the local schools and not enough people to use health centres and so on. These areas need more people.

It is vital that the committee has a conversation, as the President would describe it, about this major national policy area. We should discuss what direction we should take, whether every area, irrespective of population numbers, has a right to a certain level of service and if every area also has significant potential for development. I believe that is the case and that, if one had a mind to it, there is not a part of the country where it would not be possible to generate considerable development with support.