Róisín Garvey (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the officials for coming to the committee today. Water has been mentioned. Is there any rainwater harvesting in the islands? To me this would be a no-brainer because, as we know, the west gets tonnes of rain. Cubic metres of water can be stored easily, which is 1,000 litres per cubic metre. This can go a long way. I have seen at first hand how it gets put into schools and halls. I have not heard any mention yet of rainwater harvesting. Such stored water could be there in emergency situations if water has run out. Infrared technology can be used to kill off bacteria. Is the Department looking into this as an option besides being dependent on a mains supply all the time?

There are a lot of great things happening but I have to say that I could spend all of my time trying to find all the things in order to let the community groups know about them. I would love to know, for example, how the Department promotes these. Is there a one-stop shop? My time should not be spent doing PR and trying to connect the dots between supports and the community group and small businesses in rural areas. I would love to know what is the best way to do that. Is there a Department link or am I missing something? Some community groups give out because they have not heard about a scheme that others did hear about. I would like to have a fair and level playing field for all of them and I would like to know how we can do that better. How does the Department advertise these?

I would also like to highlight the very important role that local markets play. We have a very good local market in Rosslevan, near Ennis. This has been a great social gathering for people where they can go to support local producers, growers and crafts people. When they could not go to mass and when there were no shops open it was the only thing one could do to meet other humans. We have very few of such markets. I believe there are 126 of these markets out of 1,500 towns in Ireland. From being involved in them in the past, I know that these markets can struggle to get proper supports from the local authorities or from the Government. We really need to look at that. For older people or for those who live alone, going to a market might not really be about buying the produce; it could be more about the social element. There is an excellent market in Kinvara where they have live music but it has occurred to me that in my county we only have one regular farmers' market in the whole county. There is something wrong with this and we need to look at them to give them more supports. They need to be less complicated. There was a market in Ennis but it got really complicated, whereby they wanted to charge the market €20,000 if it wanted electricity. The market has since found space in a private place that said they could have all the electricity in the world. We are failing when it comes to local markets. We have climate change and we have Brexit, we have social and mental health issues, and then there is rural isolation. The Department needs to look more at supporting local markets, local growers and local gatherings, which are outdoors and safe. I would like to hear the officials' views on this, and would like to work on this in the future with the Department.

Deputy Ó Cuív spoke of the fact that it is hard to get planning permission in rural areas these days. It is also hard to access all the empty houses in rural areas. There are 48 in the village I am from, and I live in a two-pub, one-shop town.

Some of them are derelict while others are just empty, but there is something missing in that respect. I know from travelling around north Clare and west Clare - we probably saw it everywhere - the amount of social housing as well as shops and town houses that are empty in most rural villages. Something drastic needs to be done about that, whether it is giving the owners a carrot, so to speak, to help them renovate and rent out the property, because there is a lack of places to rent in rural areas. We need to look at the question of empty houses. We do not always have to build new houses. Let us look at the existing buildings and whether we can do more to encourage people to do them up or rent them out if they do not need them.

There are also many empty houses on the islands that family members may have built but they no longer live in them. They may use them for Airbnb purposes but they are not available all year round. We have issues with Airbnb around Lahinch and Ennistymon where houses are rented out for a few days when we have major issues with finding places to rent around north Clare. I would like to see more done for the existing buildings that would bring life back into villages and towns.

It is important that we do not always overcentralise funding. For example, there is a great group in Newmarket-on-Fergus which does meals on wheels. They were hoping to expand that service. They have been getting phone calls from all across the county to expand it. I helped them with a pre-budget submission. It went to a central rural development group nationwide but I worry that by the time that funding is drawn down, it might not happen as effectively as it would have with an existing group who know what needs to be done because they have been doing the work on the ground for years. We need to watch out for that.

The community employment, CE, schemes were mentioned. It is very important that we make them as inclusive as possible. I continue to get phone calls from people who would love to join but they are not allowed either because they are too old or they have been means tested and, as their wife is a teacher or something like that, they cannot access it. That is an important link, whether it is a CE scheme for three months, a year or whatever. It would be welcome if we could look at that because it is a great social outlet for people in rural areas.