Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Very briefly, I often notice that in the discourse now we talk about Dublin, rural towns and cities and we forget that 1.5 million people, one third of our population, live outside the towns or villages. A city with a third of the population in it would be a hell of a city. There is one, Dublin. We keep noticing that. Rural Ireland is predominantly outside the towns and villages. No matter how long, and how often, and how strong the feeling in the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government, and planning and planning and planning is, Irish people are very attached to their non-nucleated villages. I live in one of those places that is highly enterprising. We get literature telling us we think better when we are in the city but I do not find I think any better up here than I do down below. I did not find that when I migrated to the west I became less creative. I actually became a lot more creative because necessity does that. I do not find my local population any less creative and I defy anybody to say, given the suite of lack of infrastructure over the years, that they have not been incredibly creative in overcoming that. We do not seem to understand that there is an Ireland out there that has been written out of the geography and most people expect that Ireland to travel. What this does is allow that Ireland to stay at home and work from where it is. It is a pity that all the documents we get seem to talk about towns as if that third did not exist. We do exist.

I keep pointing to one interesting thing. I know Killarney eventually got the better of Mullinalaghta but it was David and Goliath. Pound for pound, however, they put up a hell of a battle for a population of 400 against the whole town of Killarney and its hinterland, as they call it. St. Thomas's is still in the shake. I think it is up against Ballyhale Shamrocks.