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

I have been an unashamed advocate for rural Ireland for the past 25 years or so as I live in a very rural area. For any plan to be successful, the principal actors and stakeholders must first escape capture by the heavy hand of the supervisory Departments. Nothing will be achieved if one is constrained by a top-down Department view. However, I do not see an escape here because the plan strikes me as representing a piece for everybody in the audience without a prime objective or desire. It does not show the necessary bias to remedy infrastructure defects across rural hinterlands and landscapes. That will not be achieved. There is no sign of positive discrimination in favour of rural Ireland.

Cities by their nature are vibrant and active. That is why they will survive. One need only look at something that keeps the local authority going, the rates base. A single big industry in a city can be equivalent to the entire rates base across a rural county. That means development can take place, which is fair play. Many people are gravitating from our areas, and must travel long journeys, to get to work in the cities. They are contributing to development in the cities. That is fair enough. However, the Minister must trust local authorities to achieve some of the plans. Every action and initiative of the local authorities is circumscribed by what I consider to be vice-like departmental control. There is no real devolution of powers or responsibility to local authorities from the mother Department. That is a failing in the plan. Nothing will be achieved until that is released. I have always held that view. We must let the local authorities loose and vest them with the authority to be real local development innovators and agencies, without having to refer back to the Department.

We see that with the housing situation. It is a case of going up and down repeatedly and taking three years to build a house that could be built in six months. I encounter great frustration in Westmeath and Longford with this. One does not have any answers, so one becomes neutralised oneself as well. It is also reflected in the broadband situation. There are great broadband initiatives taking place but, as I said at the last meeting, Eir identifies particular areas. My area of Ballynacargy, nearby Ballymore, Colehill in Longford and Legan are blackspots but the first thing Eir did was to stop coming to those areas even though they were identified by the Government and everybody else as blackspots. It is bad enough that rural people are relegated to being third-class citizens but, to add insult to injury, consider the situation in Mullingar on the N52. Bloomfield House Hotel in Mullingar is one of the finest hotels in the country and Mullingar Golf Club is one of the finest golf clubs in the country. In Belvedere, for example, the madness is that Eir delivers broadband to a person in one place, for example, where the Minister is sitting, but the person's sister next door, who has a business, cannot get it. The woman is in business and comes from a innovative family of entrepreneurs, one of the finest in the country. She is at her wits' end and cannot believe it. How can the Minister talk about grandiose plans when he cannot even deliver that simple thing? With broadband connectivity there can be cottage or remote control-type industries. That is how to give rural people a chance.

I recall speaking at an event in Kiltimagh in 1998 or 1999. It was the finest example I have seen of a little local area plan that people devised for themselves, long before anybody was given a tosser. Consider what the Ludgate Hub is doing for Skibbereen and Clonakilty in west Cork. There are plenty of people showing us how it is done. We do not need experts. I believe the game is over the minute we bring in consultants. The Minister should dump the consultants and show them the door. I have never had time for them. We achieved more in the Dáil on the carers issue by writing our own report - simple men handwriting it. We brought forward 15 recommendations and eight of them were implemented by the late Minister, Seamus Brennan, and his successors. The consultants must be cut out. As soon as I see them I know the game is over for rural Ireland. The first thing they do is start talking in haughty language that means nothing but garbage. Let us be clear about that.

With regard to the IDA and so forth, there are 22.5 ha in Mullingar available for development. The N52 road cuts through it. There is also the M6 and M4 nearby. The 22.5 ha have been sitting there for the last eight years. There is planning permission and the land is serviced, yet the IDA could not get a snipe into it. This is a town with 25,000 to 28,000 people and it has the potential to grow. It is an hour from Dublin Port and Dublin Airport, 30 minutes from Maynooth and 30 minutes from Athlone Institute of Technology. It is nonsense. It is all grandiose, gravy train ideas with not an ounce of practicality.

That is what worries me about this plan. We will have smart growth initiatives, competition and plenty of stuff between public and private enterprise, but what will happen to small local councils? Consider the planning issue. I have been a strong advocate of rural planning. I had to be. I would not be living where I am living without getting my house. Under the planning code I can write in an objection to somebody building a house in Galway, Cork or Donegal. The planning should only have an impact where one lives. Westmeath people should object in Westmeath, not chase off to write an objection to somebody living in Meath or Cork. One must be impacted by the planning application. I need a few minutes on this issue, Chairman. Rural planning permissions are very important. A son or daughter building beside his or her elderly parents means the son or daughter is available to the parents to ensure they do not end up in nursing homes or elsewhere. The son or daughter, or their partners, will be able to provide the necessary care. We can gain from that.

The first thing one hears is that there are no services. The funny thing is that rural people did not object to paying their water rates or anything else. They pay for everything. They do not mind. We do not get footpaths or lights but I could not give a sugar as long as I could live beside my late mother and father. That was all that interested me, so I could provide some help to them. That does not come into the planning laws but it is a core issue. Those people are critical to maintaining football, hockey and soccer teams and keeping churches, schools, Garda stations and anything else in rural Ireland alive.

Gas supply is also important. Places such as Kinnegad, Moate, Kilbeggan, Delvin and Castlepollard, all big towns, cannot get a gas supply from Bord Gáis.

I wish to make a final point. We do not appear to be getting much industry, but thankfully we have a number of manufacturing industries such as the Mergon Group and TEG in Mullingar. We were lucky in that regard. They are wonderful people who have done great work over the years. We are dependent on that but we need more help, more apprenticeships and so forth. We need the balanced growth my colleagues have discussed. I have been involved with the Sparkassen model since its inception. I brought its representatives to meet the credit unions at a big public meeting. The problem is that the dead hand of the Department of Finance and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform will do everything it can to make sure it does not happen, notwithstanding that every Member of the Oireachtas wants it to happen. Bureaucrats will ensure that something that is absolutely critical to revitalising rural Ireland will not happen. There is a place in Mullingar for the midlands one ready to go and there will be seven or eight more of them around the country, but it will not happen unless somebody does something.

I will give a final example. The Royal Canal has been great. The former Minister, Deputy Ó Cuív, and the current President Higgins were involved with it. They were great Ministers who were innovative. I have been involved with the Royal Canal Amenity Group since 1979 as a volunteer. I received an answer to a parliamentary question from the Department a few days ago which illustrates the type of thing that is happening. The Minister of State is aware of this because he was fighting for things for Meath as a Deputy. There is a small spur line to Longford to finish this project from Spencer Dock to Cloondara.

It is a wonderful amenity. Half the country walks the Royal Canal. Starting in Dublin, it is possible to walk the length of the canal. My home is on the banks of the canal and I see walkers passing by. That this project is not considered a priority shows the lack of joined-up thinking in Departments. This puts people over the edge. Volunteers in the Royal Canal Amenity Group cannot believe this project is not proceeding.