Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Am I right? I bet Deputy Ó Cuív remembers that. That has not been done. How could a Department of any description in this State do 95% of the job and leave the critical 5% not done? One can have all the Comptroller and Auditor Generals in the world but it is no good if jobs are not finished. It is vital for that spur into Longford to be completed. Let us complete the footpaths from Abbeyshrule to Clondra. This is what we get for the Royal Canal and for the Grand Canal. This is all joined up. We have everything there. Thousands of people go to it.

I have been advocating the Sparkassen model and I wore the Minister's head out. I know he has great patience listening to me. I have been advocating this as something that is safe and will not compete with the credit unions or post offices but will complement them. I know the Kerr report is available and we are still waiting for its implementation. That was a tremendous report. I will be partial and say that we did great work on that in government. Bobby Kerr brought forward great recommendations but, whatever happens, people become paralysed the minute a report is available. They throw it up and never want to see it again. A good, proactive report was produced and now the Sparkassen model has been raised, with German people coming in, who attended a committee about finance and such. We were advocating such a system long before some of those people heard of it. I asked the Minister a question about in the Dáil. I am advocating it. We have a pilot project ready in the midlands that will take this on. We need to get money to small entrepreneurs that Deputies Fitzmaurice and Ó Cuív were talking about. The banks are still not lending to those small people. If the post office never comes together, with this, small businesses have an opportunity to get financial assistance. The Sparkassen model does not want to take over anything. It just wants to help, mentor and provide. I think that is an ideal opportunity.

I hate to have to raise this. Safety in rural Ireland is awful. I heard an awful story yesterday evening from part of my constituency. It is frightening that elderly people have been robbed three times in the last two years. Their jeep was stolen two years ago. They were robbed again three weeks ago and again at the weekend. They live in a rural area in County Westmeath. Their son rang me in an awful state. It is frightening how elderly people who have helped to build this country, members of a farming community, say they feel threatened, unsafe and frightened. I do not know if it is in the Minister's remit but will CCTV, security and technology improvements be installed on advanced roadways, major networks and such? It is a sad day when we have to even ask the Minister about this. What has become of us as a people when we have to do this to try to help and protect our people who live in the hearts of our communities and who made a major contribution all their lives?

On the matter of broadband, what is Eir up to? Outside Mullingar, I know a businesswoman who lives beside her brother, right next door. There is a pole and infrastructure to facilitate her. She does not get the broadband and her brother does and she is a businesswoman. They are as close together as Deputy Fitzmaurice and I are at present. How can Eir justify that? I think its members sit above in an administrative office like this, drawing lines and saying that is where a service will stop, using this new Eircode or whatever else. The Minister of State, Deputy Kyne, should call Eir's representatives in and ask them to account for that nonsense. The rural area of my own village of Ballynacargy is covered by the broadband service, which stops at Sonna which is where my wife is from, so that is brave. The village of Ballynacargy with businesses such as garages and other new ones trying to start up, was not covered. The service did not come down the road to where there is a big population. One would want to sack those in Eir, not give them more, for the way they have behaved. They should be put out. I have good friends working there and they cannot understand it.