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

When the witnesses refer to older people, do they mean people who are aged 60 years and older; 65 years and older: 66 years and older: 70 years and older: 80 years and older and 90 years and older? It is very important to know the age group we are talking about because sometimes there is an impression that all people over 60 years and older are cróili,non-active or whatever. That is not my experience of rural Ireland.

Coming from an urban background and with all my family living in urban areas, I moved to a rural area. I have the choice now but I would rather get old in a rural rather than an urban area. It is very important that we do not fall into the trap of painting some of the problems that apply across older people as being uniquely rural problems. I would find better social integration because people tend to remain in the area where they always lived so that one's neighbours tend to be the same neighbours as one had 20 or 30 years ago. I would be interested to hear the witnesses comment on that. My experience is that in certain circumstances there is even more loneliness in urban areas. I am always concerned when questions on loneliness are put to older people living in urban or rural areas. By definition a person who has lost a partner, be they a widows or widowers is lonely. No matter how good their life is they are lonely because the most important person in their life has gone or family members are living abroad. I believe that rural areas are a good place to live but one faces many challenges that could be dealt with. To what extent is the migration of younger people, particularly those in the 20 to 50 age group out of rural areas because of lack of job opportunity creating unnecessary isolation? Is that taking the normal social supports of inter-generational groups? Sport is one of the great recreations in rural areas. I heard this morning that places such as Achill Island find it hard to put a football team together. That is not just for the players, that would have been the great social outlet for people, where they meet, greet and have fun together.

I know what the witnesses mean when they talk about grandparents. I keep coming across the challenge that if one does not have a critical mass of people, it is not economic to keep child care facilities open. Should there be a base level of support for paid child care for every community? There can be fluctuations in population numbers and given this, should there be, as had been previously, a minimum amount of money given to professional community child care providers so that they can keep the doors open?

If the doors of the community child care close, the people have lost out completely.

It seems there is a common theme to all the presentations, be it access to third level grants and so on, it revolves around transport. The provision of transport can be a frequent service in and out of the nearest town or city. The model of service we have in the country is a single bus in the morning and a single return bus in the evening - a service that is seen as good enough. The new railway service to Newbridge provides seven trains in the morning and seven return trains in the evening that go under the Phoenix Park even though another ten or 15 trains go into Heuston station. That is the correct way to provide a service. Would it bring about a significance difference to have frequent services into the county towns and so on? Will the witnesses comment on the subsidy per head of population to Dublin Bus and although the subsidy applies in an area of concentrated population, the subsidy from the Exchequer per head of people living in Dublin is five times the subsidy per head of population to Bus Éireann. That is bizarre.

My final question in this round relates to the policy of pushing the family formation segment of society into towns and whether this is creating unnecessary social isolation in rural areas because the traditional pattern there was to live beside ones parents and grandparents and that provided mutual social support and gave the older people access to cars. People experience difficulties in being granted planning permission for a house near their parents, particularly if they do not live on a farm, which applies more and more as people no longer live on the farm. They must acquire a site with planning permission. Has the policy of local authorities not building one-off rural houses caused difficulties? It has been a double whammy, causing the gentrification of the countryside by pushing people who need social housing into towns and rural isolation by taking away the family supports that were given by inter-generational connection and which the present State policy seems to be destroying. The State is saying that those from rural areas must go into town if they need a local authority house, and cannot stay in their own area. That town could be 25 km away or more from their family home whereas in the old days, the local authority got a site for €100 and built a house which they rented to the family. A socially integrated society creates a support mechanism where the older people are helping the younger people and as they age, the younger people help them. I think that is the natural way of society, but we seem to be hell bent on destroying that lifestyle. How much is that affecting the demand for the services?

In line with what the Society of St. Vincent de Paul states, issues arising from poverty facing families are acute, particularly as most rural people live in houses they own and there are no grants for those under the age of 60 to 65 and in some local authority areas up to 70 years, for repairing houses, which is often the biggest cost people face in bringing houses up to standard.