Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I might put a few questions to the Minister. I understand what she says about negativity and that too much negativity will not necessarily sell an area. I suppose sometimes if an Opposition Deputy does not focus on problems, they will not be fixed either. One is caught between a rock and a hard place in that regard.

In economics there is a view that one should get the economic model working correctly rather than adding smaller elements to try to support a failing economic model. There is much good stuff in the plan that the Minister has brought to bear and much that would bring a positive difference to many people in rural Ireland. I am still of the view that the economic model for rural Ireland is still in trouble. I say this because we have had a wealth of groups in here with information that is not as positive as it should be. For example, An Post indicated 500 post offices were not currently economically viable and Teagasc told us only a third of farmers - the backbone of the rural community - are independently viable. If we take away the single farm payment or the fact that a third of farmers work outside the farm to supplement it, only approximately 30,000 farmers in the State are making the €19,000 deemed to be able to make a living. That is a shocking fact when we are considering development of the rural community.

A key action in bringing the other approximately 60% of farmers into the profitable sphere would be to enhance their ability to get into the energy development sector. I mentioned feed-in tariffs to the Minister before and such tariffs for small-scale wind and solar and bio-energy. I know farmers in County Meath with an abundance of slurry who could easily use the methane from it to create small-scale electricity generation. They are waiting for planning permission to beat the band.

However, they are waiting for the Renewable Energy Feed In Tariff to do that. In a society that is hungry for energy and in a country that will have €600 million in EU fines by 2020 if it does not decarbonise, and in a sector that is crying out for product from which to make extra income, those three elements should be pushing the Government towards taking action, but we are not near that action at the moment.

Those in business - be that a company like Google or a small enterprise - will say that the key elements to doing business are having product, having a customer, having access to that customer in transport and communications, and having competitive inputs into the creation of those products. The transport infrastructure in regional and rural areas is a mess. When representatives of the NTA appeared before the committee a few weeks ago we asked them the basis on which they were making decisions on transportation investment. They told us they made those decisions based on where demand was strongest. That is the logical objective. However, in order to make regional and rural areas more effective, it is necessary to disrupt that objective and make the objective building for future demand in the regions and in rural areas. They are two mutually competitive objectives and the latter objective is not being met.

We also hear what is happening with regard to Bus Éireann. Places like Derry are losing their Bus Éireann connection. The Athlone to Westport and Dublin to Clonmel connections are to be lost. People living in Donegal, Tyrone and County Derry currently have no motorway, no rail line and no air connectivity with Dublin. Now they will have no State bus service to Dublin. All the reports and action plans in the world will never rebalance the loss of connectivity. That will take money beyond the existing demand. It will take disruptive money as well.

The Minister also mentioned credit unions. I have met the regulator of credit unions. The Government's policy for credit unions is not on the same page as the Minister has articulated here. I agree with everything she said about the role credit unions could play in the country's development. However, the credit union sector is being driven down. Slowly but surely it is being regulated out of the space it is in. It has €10 billion sitting in AIB and Bank of Ireland earning no interest. It wants to invest that money in the development of housing and small businesses, but is being prevented by the regulator and Government policy. While there has been movement which can be measured in inches to create more space for credit unions to operate, the Government has put a cap on the development of credit unions.

I ask the Minister to consider the development of Border enterprise development zones within the national strategic development plan that is being development at the moment. Given that the Minister comes from a Border area, she should make a strong play for the Government to develop specific tools to allow towns such as Monaghan town, Enniskillen, Dungannon, Strabane, Lifford, Letterkenny, Newry and Dundalk to grow into the future. Those towns are different from most of the other towns. There are many towns on the natural periphery of this country. The Border is a man-made periphery. It is a periphery that should not be there but it exists because of the dysfunction of the relationship between Britain and Ireland. Those towns will suffer the most and take the brunt of Brexit in the future. I ask the Minister and her officials to develop a Border development zone to offer some competitive advantage for those towns to deal with the challenges they have in the coming years.