Mr. Ian Dempsey:

If we take employment, and that cuts to the heart of what we are talking about in terms of sustaining rural areas, on the figures we have the biggest bang per buck in terms of value achieved in employment creation is in the food and related sector. In the last programme food fell out half way through because somebody had not expressly included it in the Leader programme. There were many lost opportunities and most areas around the country did not fund food projects because it was no longer a part of the core programme. In quite a modest way we created 51 new jobs in the food sector in the last programme. I am not interested in making any extravagant claims about job creation, there are plenty of others who do that. I am talking about actual jobs, not ones expected in two and three years but ones that are there, that are developing and have gone further than that. Tourism is very important in every rural area but it does not deliver a lot in terms of direct job creation because the quality of the employment created tends not to be full-time equivalent year round.

It is seasonal, part-time and other things as well.

The services and technology area, which is not particularly pronounced in terms of something like the rural development and Leader programmes, is where we all need to be but, of course, we are back to broadband provision and connectivity. Significant opportunities exist at local level and if the infrastructure is provided, that employment is created. There is plenty of evidence from a number of places throughout the country of where that can be done. That is exactly where rural areas need to be.