Noel Grealish (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman for allowing me to attend this meeting. I am not a member of this committee but I am a rural Deputy and I was interested to listen to the presentations which have hit the nail on the head. Over recent decades rural Ireland has suffered greatly. One of the biggest issues affecting it is the emigration of young people. I returned from the United States recently where there are many young people working in the major cities, most of them from rural Ireland because the jobs are not available here. This is affecting many rural clubs, particularly GAA clubs. Six or seven years ago there was only one GAA club in Perth and now there are nine. Dr. Meredith said, once young people leave the countryside, they will not come back. That is true too of migration to Dublin, Cork, Galway and Limerick where they go to college, get jobs and stay.

I compliment Forum Connemara on the excellent work it has done in trying to create jobs in the countryside. It is a very successful company operating in recent decades in Connemara. I am very familiar with its excellent work. For example, it has supported Connemara Community Radio which is an excellent station. Mr. Boland mentioned the rural transport service and people who have a regular routine. Much can be said for the rural post offices. A postmistress told me that an elderly gentleman came to the post office regular as clockwork on a Thursday at 12 noon. The Thursday he did not turn up she tried to phone him and when he did not answer she rang the neighbour to go in. The man had suffered a stroke and was lying on the ground. That is what rural post offices do. I am bitterly disappointed that the Department of Social Protection is trying to make payments online because there will be more rural isolation.

I have attended many meetings over the past year about changes to the Forum Connemara programme. Why fix it if it is not broken? Galway is technically two counties, with the east being very different from rural Connemara. What was there should have been left. Where are the difficulties or blockages? Is it more difficult and does it take longer to get a programme through from initial application to providing jobs? I believe that what has been proposed will cause more difficulties in getting these programmes put in place. I know it decided to manage its own Leader programme separately from the county council local community development committee, LCDC. What are the benefits of that?

I agree with Mr. Coyne that the forum's board should make its own decisions. With no disrespect to the county councils, their function is to get the roads tarred, get water programmes in place and so forth. They are trying to bring this in under their umbrella and many of us dealing with local authorities find it difficult to get decisions from them. It is important to keep the local structure, that is, the board in place, as in Leader.

I could keep going for another ten or 15 minutes but my colleagues are waiting. I compliment the witnesses on the tremendous work they are doing to keep the rural community alive and trying to get the young people back to rural Ireland. That is crucial. If we do not do this, rural Ireland will die.