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

Boreen is literally a small road. They are small roads that were never taken in charge. If one lives in a village with a small road like that - what I define as a village is a townland - it states that to be eligible for the scheme two of the houses have to be engaged in agricultural activities. That is like saying that to be eligible for a scheme in the city two of the workers would have to be involved in the high-tech industry. The vast majority of people living in rural Ireland today are not involved in agriculture. It is unnecessarily restrictive. I would say "yes" if it stated that they had to be permanent dwellings, not holiday homes. That is fine, but I do not see why the scheme is specifying a particular occupation just because it was the dominant occupation 50 to 70 years ago.

Thankfully, we have retained our population where I live. There is the same number of teachers in the area as there was in 1974, which is good for a very rural area. There is plenty of employment and many young people have built houses. One person in a family might have the farm and the other two or three do not, but they have stayed in the area which is great. However, that is an unnecessary condition in the scheme and I ask that it be removed.