Mr. Chris Byrne:

-----which featured prominently in a recent election, Kildare was shafted. It is as blunt as that. We have one of the largest growing populations in the country, yet 40% of every working adult has to leave our county for work.

I do not believe the issues are unique to Kildare. However, having spent all my adult working life in Kildare, providing local employment in a rural way, there needs to be joined-up thinking between the programmes and a realisation that rural development is about people in the community, not about local authorities usurping - a phrase I used in my report for which I make no apology - the influence of local development companies. It appears to me that there is a grab for funding and programmes, taking it away from the bottom-up approach in which local development companies are involved. I have no axe to grind with anybody and I have no political party. I have voted for every one of them in my time. I am no longer involved in rural development. I had 20 years and, under the ministerial order we have to rotate, so I am gone. The way it is going is about process, funding, control and power, not about rural development.