Eugene Murphy (Roscommon-Galway, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I do not want to be repetitious so I will be short. I am a big advocate for rural Ireland and its difficulties. I pay tribute to Mr. Seamus Boland of Irish Rural Link. He kept the debate going at times when very few people were talking about rural Ireland. I pay a particular tribute to Ms Louise Lennon. She is focused on her job and is a credit to the organisation she works for. I say that here in front of Mr. Boland because we know part of her position is ringing up politicians to say there is a deficit in their area relating to meals on wheels and such. That is fantastic and I thank her. We are working on a number of schemes throughout the region and will meet her again.

Mr. Boland and Deputies Penrose and Fitzmaurice generally come from where I am coming from. We can speak all day about the lack of broadband connectivity, which is a significant problem. People in Roscommon have moved out of the county. Some 60% of County Roscommon needs the national broadband plan roll-out, more than any other county in Ireland, as Deputy Fitzmaurice will know from serving the constituency, as do many parts of east Galway, where he lives. It is important and the witnesses may say that they are telling us that, that we are the legislators and we should do it. I get frustrated with the talk. It goes on year after year about where the problems are and what we need to do, and then little or nothing happens. Broadband is very important. I know where the witnesses are coming from and I like to write letters myself. Business, schools and others will say how important broadband is. People have moved out of Roscommon to Longford because we did not have sufficient broadband for businesses in my area.

Things that should not be happening irrespective of not having a national broadband plan roll-out still happen. In north-east Roscommon, Tarmonbarry is on the N5, the national primary route. I am sure many people know it. Mr. Farrell knows it anyway. Rooskey village is in the news at the moment for a different reason. The company that was rolling out broadband for Eir, KN, rolled the broadband down the 043 line from Tarmonbarry towards Rooskey. It is eight miles between Tarmonbarry and Rooskey. Four miles along, it cuts off where the 043 line finishes. Another group came up on the 071 line and finishes where it stops. It leaves 200 m and six houses without a connection. That should be solved overnight. Despite talking to Eir and others, it could not be done. Within that area where there were six houses, two people ran businesses from home. They have stopped that now. They had to move. No matter what hold-up is in the system, there should be a situation where that type of minor issue can be dealt with. That is where we are failing. That is really frustrating people.

I accept that broadband companies are there to make money but they pick and choose. There was a situation in north Roscommon, which I think Deputy Fitzmaurice will be aware of, where a certain company was providing broadband. It is not an easy area to provide broadband to. The company found a more lucrative area to come from and so pulled out and left up to 100 people without broadband and moved to the more lucrative area where it could get more customers and there was a better connection. It is important that we get to the point where the Government delivers this and we as politicians have to work hard on that. The rates issue has been addressed. I agree with Deputy Penrose that it would be timely to have a review. Some premises and small businesses came out on the plus side but a considerable number of businesses had a massive increase in rates in rural Ireland.

I will be straight about the banking situation. I am a believer in credit unions and will nail my colours to the mast. I believe credit unions should be allowed to broaden their remit into the area of banks and Government and others should acknowledge that. We have a problem with a number of banks pulling out of small towns. Credit unions have been very supportive of communities. I do not think it is possible to argue for a new banking model one day and for credit unions the next. A person can support one or the other. I support the credit unions because of their record, the network and the branches. They are in most towns, including those which do not have banks. Let us move on with it and let the credit unions take on board what we have said here today, particularly what Deputies Penrose and Fitzmaurice have been saying.

Going back to Mr. Boland's point, I have been saying for years that when we had the Industrial Credit Company, ICC, and Agricultural Credit Corporation, ACC, they were significant. When they were both removed from the system, it was a major drawback for financing. It narrowed the field. It is one of the reasons many banking problems have arisen. Credit unions may need to get out to the farming community more.

They should let them know what is available and how they can help them. Quite a number of people in the farming community are not fully aware of their products and what they can do now in regard to loans.

On balanced regional development, the programme for Government says we are going to create 500,000 jobs throughout Ireland over the next four to five years. We were promised that 275,000 of those would be in rural Ireland. It is not happening in our area. The jobs are just not being created. I acknowledge it is happening in other parts of the country. In places like Roscommon or east Galway, it is just not happening. That is the problem. One does not have the work. Up to 1,000 people a day leave County Roscommon to travel to Dublin to work in the private and public sectors. Members of my family get up at 4.30 a.m. and get back at 9 p.m. Put oneself in the place of a young parent, particularly a young mother, who leaves a house at that time of the day and does not get home until 9 p.m. It is a shocking life for anybody. It is not acceptable. We have to rectify it because we have all of this development, which we hear about over and over again. The west and the midlands are so open to development that it makes sense to put the money into those regions and to draw more people back into them.

I refer another matter of concern in rural areas. Deputy Fitzmaurice touched on financing, the purchase of land, etc. There is another problem there. The growth of forestry - we need certain forestry and I am not saying we do not need it - is utterly appalling in this country. Somebody needs to stop what is happening. Recently I got figures that show 23% of all the licences for forestry granted by the Department between 2016 and spring 2018 went to three counties. That is over a quarter of all the licences. They went to Leitrim, Roscommon and Galway.