Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for not being here at the beginning of the meeting. I concur with the Chairman's comments on the national planning framework. This committee should have an input into the framework as it develops. I also agree with the Chairman's view on the gulf between rural and urban Ireland. When we look at a map of Ireland and its motorways, which is the very basic requirement when it comes to infrastructure in a region or county road networks, and given that Cavan and Monaghan have no public rail system, people are totally dependent on that road system. I welcome that additional money has been put into the local improvement scheme, which suffered a funding famine over the past ten years. So many people depend on this to get to their farms and homes every day because they are ruled out if their road is not a public road. The local improvement scheme is the only opportunity to have their road in a safe condition to get to and from their homes.

I would like to see this committee having an input to the national planning framework, and to dissect it and investigate it to see how we can best put forward our ideas for rural Ireland, especially constituencies and regions that do not have the public transport network we would like. When one looks at the map, it is quite frightening to see fabulous motorways across the country but for us they all lead, unfortunately, to Galway and south of there. When one looks north of the Galway to Dublin motorway, there is very little to be seen in terms of motorway infrastructure. Even the M3, which stops at the Cavan-Meath border, really makes people in the Border region feel inferior and almost as though they are in a forgotten part of the island. When one comes close to the Border, the motorway suddenly stops at the Meath-Cavan border. Issues such as this must be addressed if we are serious about dealing with depopulation and encouraging businesses. We are never going to get companies such as Google or Facebook but we have a huge, indigenous population within our own communities that will get on their own two feet to create work for themselves and others if they are given the opportunity and if the infrastructure is put in place. There is a significant onus on us, with this plan coming to fruition, to ensure this happens in any way we can.