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

I thank the Minister for announcing this evening, at last, that Inis Oirr has been given the approval that was sought. This is a good day. It is a great day for the island. However, planning permission for the development in question was given in 2008. I am delighted the Minister has eventually managed to get the thing on her desk and sanction it and I look forward to the pier going into construction because we are very lucky nobody has been killed off the pier yet. Two people have been killed off a pier in Inishmaan over the years, and something similar happening on Inisheer was not a risk that could be discounted. I hope the Minister will now proceed with the other piers on the islands.

Since I am talking about islands, the Department will soon - the Minister might tell me when - go out for the contract for the air service to the Aran Islands. There is already an airstrip on Inishbofin. For an estimated cost of €600,000 a year - a marginal cost - a service could be run from the existing Aerphort Chonamara, where the service to the Aran Islands is based, out as far as Inishbofin. I cannot understand the Department's reluctance to provide an equivalent service to Inishbofin that would have a disproportionate benefit because it is further out into the sea and further away from the cities and so on. I look forward to hearing from the Minister on this issue today or perhaps later because when we are talking about rural, you do not get much more rural than the Aran Islands and Inishbofin.

I read the plan. Most of it is a rehash of Deputy Ring's plan and commitments already made. The rural regeneration fund and the rural broadband scheme are there. I have always been a great supporter of the latter. It will bring fibre to virtually every house in the country, and those that will not get fibre will get a 100 Mbps service, which is very good. That is the biggest game changer in rural areas. However, when I look at the plan and the plans for rural Ireland, the first thing I have to say is that, as one of the people not living in a village or town, I am beginning to feel very lonely on this island. We seem to be disowned completely as not having a valid lifestyle in our communities and parish communities if we do not live in towns or villages. I am particularly concerned about the interface between this plan, which calls for an increase in the number of people living in rural areas, and the national planning framework, the whole objective of which is to stop the growth in rural areas or to place severe limits on it. The Minister might outline the discussions she has had with the people in local government as to how these two contradictory policies will mesh because there is a very clear drive to take people out of rural parishes and to push them into towns and villages.

There is a lot of talk about developing houses in towns and villages on streets. There are a number of problems there and we should put them straight up. It is very expensive to do because of all the building regulations and is very constraining in many cases because some of these houses were built a long time ago and are on very tight sites. We have to look at why people are not jumping at various incentives that have been put their way. Another issue that has to be looked at is that some of these villages are street villages - sráidbhailte, as is said in Irish, which is a much more apt description of a villagery or a street - and a village is a street. The main street in a village is on a main road, and the problem with that is that the front doors in many cases open up onto very busy thoroughfares, and many people with children do not want to live in a property whereby if they head out the front door, they are immediately onto a very dangerous road. We need to be practical and sensible about this and look at how that issue can be dealt with.

Were there discussions with the NTA, Bus Éireann and Iarnród Éireann? I see what is said about Local Link, but the main connecting bus services we need in rural Ireland are services to the major cities and towns because people sometimes work in those places. A very poor service is provided under the public service obligation, PSO. It is provided at a fraction per capitaof population. The subsidy is much less - a third or a quarter per head of population - than that which is provided to, for example, Bus Átha Cliath per capitaof population. I know it is counter-intuitive, but they are the facts when you examine them. What discussions have taken place to equalise the spend per capitaand to ensure good services and real services in rural areas?