Mr. William Parnell:

I will take those questions. Deputy Kerrane referred to the new rural policy. The development of the policy was delayed because of the Covid-19 crisis but we will have a stronger policy as a result of it because one of the key things the country, as a whole, is going to have to deal with is how to respond and recover both economically and socially from the impacts of Covid-19. The publication is obviously a matter for the Minister and he has indicated that the new rural policy might be published early in the new year.

I certainly appreciate Deputy Kerrane’s question on jobs. The difficulty we have in measuring exactly where the jobs are is that the CSO, in its labour force survey, counts the jobs at the level of the subregion on the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics, NUTS 3 regions basis. One will get details on employment in the north west or the south of the south east, for example. The CSO does not capture that information at county level. The only time people get clear and precise information about employment at county level is through the census. That is a little bit of a challenge but we can certainly measure it at the NUTS 3 level. In the case of, for example, the west of Ireland, this will include Galway, Mayo and Roscommon. We will be focusing very much on job creation as a key element of the new rural policy.

The Deputy asked about the idea of one-stop shop for different schemes.

There is information on all of our schemes on gov.ie butI appreciate that as schemes grow in terms of the different target groups we are trying to reach, it can be difficult for people to navigate their way around. I take on board the Deputy's suggestion. There is, perhaps, more we can do to help improve our signposting and also streamline our application processes.

Senator Burke asked about Pat Spillane's report, which is the Commission for the Economic Development of Rural Areas, CEDRA, report published in 2014. It was built on by the Action Plan for Rural Development, to which Deputy Kerrane referred, which ran from 2017 to 2019. There will be a new rural development policy. The CEDRA report delivered on a number of its initiatives and proposals. The central proposal of CEDRA was the need to establish a Department with a senior Minister responsible for rural development. That has happened, as the committee will know. All of the recommendations of the CEDRA report which had not been delivered at the end of 2016 were factored into the Action Plan for Rural Development. We carried out a review of the CEDRA report last year, which we published on the Department's website. The review sets out the status of all of the different recommendations made in the CEDRA report. I am happy to forward that review to the Senator if he would find that helpful.