Mr. Joseph McCrohan:

I have worked with South Kerry Development Partnership for 18 years and would like to respond to the question on rural recreation, although I realise Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív is not present. The roll-out of the walks scheme has been a great success. A farming organisation representative has put it to me that it is the only scheme he has seen rolled out to farmers that has been a great success. Only now are we seeing it getting back on track and it needs to get back on track fast.

Reference was made to greenways. As part of the greenway initiative in south Kerry farmers receive a maintenance payment. It is the same when it comes to working on rivers in south Kerry. We will be travelling to Athlone on Friday to look at locally-led environmental schemes. We see this as something on which the partnership should be leading. The issue is how we manage rivers from a recreational and a farming point of view. Eight catchments have been selected, three of which happen to be in south Kerry. We will be looking for partners from west Galway and Mayo to join us and hope to make some contacts today.

We intend to make a bid to operate the new programmes. As soon as the bad weather arrives, sheep always move off the hill. If organisations take programmes from us, we need to move on to the next. Ideally, the locally-led environmental schemes should be run by the local partnerships. The KerryLIFE project being rolled out in south Kerry demonstrates how this can be done. Although there are some issues on the project, we still believe local people are the best to deliver river catchment management plans for anglers, farmers and recreational users.

There are similarities in all of the programmes. We brought forward a proposal on the walks scheme. We are keen to see the issues of indemnity and insurance being brought to a head, finalised and agreed.

I manage the rural social scheme in south Kerry where a total of 500 places were allocated. We have that many places available on the farm assist scheme. Why has it taken 12 years to provide the extra places? Having 500 places available is welcome. I have no wish to be negative today, but the money involved was saved and taken from people's wages. The funding is in place to fund the 500 places. Surely there can be 500 places available again next year and 500 the year after that to put people to work in communities to replace the services that have been taken away. Examples include bus drivers heading towards the Black Valley, staff in child care services, people working in community crèches or to develop new walkways. We are keen to link the Kerry Way and the Dingle Way and many more walking routes in south Kerry, but to do this we need to see a further roll-out of the rural social scheme. Why was farm assist payment the only payment to be cut in recent budgets? Why have the farmers who were removed from the social inclusion and community activation programme been brought back in by way of low-income family payments? Why did it take so long for these changes to materialise? The rural social scheme and the walks scheme are successful. They did not fall into disuse under previous Governments. Why has it taken ten or 12 years to see any movement in the numbers of places available?

There is room for small enterprises in rural Ireland, but there must be room for big enterprises in rural Ireland also. FEXCO is based in Killorglin in south Kerry, but the company decentralised to Cahersiveen which provided an extraordinary boost for that town because of the availability of office space and workers there. Wood chip boilers have been installed in Astellas. Meanwhile, up the road the Department of Education and Skills built has two new schools, but locally produced wood chip cannot be burned in the school in Miltown. There is a facility in Beaufort. We put a plan together for the St. Mary of the Angels campus which could have saved €800,000 if a wood chip boiler had been installed, but those involved were unable to do so and now the facility is threatened with closure because it is not economic. An important hospital was built in Kenmare. Again, it could be burning locally produced wood chip. We would like to see big industries such as Liebherr flourishing in south Kerry. There are other examples such as Dairymaster in north Kerry. There is plenty of room for large-scale employers in rural Ireland. If we are to keep our population, we need a spread of work opportunities. It cannot be a matter of providing jobs in tourism or farming only. Some people will still want to work in industry, commercial services and banking. South Kerry cannot rely on tourism alone. As I grew up in a bed and breakfast house, I know what it is like.

It is the icing on the cake, not the full cake. There is a long winter there and we need our universities to be linked into rural Ireland. We need an opportunity where one can leave school in rural Ireland, get a degree in rural development and return to work in rural Ireland. Why was the degree in rural development operated by UCD and UCC cut out of the Leader programme? How can companies survive and get staff if people do not have the qualifications in rural development? These young people need to be able to leave school in rural Ireland, obtain further education in how to set up a business in rural Ireland and develop the tools to return to rural Ireland. That needs to happen and this committee would be well advised to look into that field.

The Tús initiative has been very important to us and we would like to see it continued. We would like to see people with disabilities being allowed to join the Tús initiative. We will be going to the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine later this evening to sign a contract on social farming and would like to see our own partnership companies nationally operating social farming everywhere whereby they would give opportunities to people with special needs to come out and work on farms. A neighbour of Deputy Danny Healy-Rae was covered in the Irish Farmers' Journallast week. He gives an opportunity to a young man to come and work on his farm one day a week. We have 27 people like that out working on farms and want every partnership in the country to do the same.

As the weather gets bad and sheep move away on the hill, we need to do the same. If people want to take programmes off us and think they are better than us at doing it, we know they will probably be coming back in time and knocking on the door. We will leave the door open, but the important thing here is the need for us to be innovative and to look for new opportunities at all times. It is very important that partnerships co-operate with each other. We should defend each other at all times. What has gone on has been very disappointing but we need to rise above it and move on.