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

I am sorry for joining the meeting late but I was in the Dáil Chamber dealing with a Topical Issue matter relevant to one of the Minister's other functions as Minister for Justice. I will not go into that. Due to IT issues this morning and yesterday, I was unable to print out the Minister's opening statement so I am at a slight disadvantage.

I wish to raise a number of issues. I caught the tail end of what the Minister said about the boat to Clare Island. I accept she cannot talk about those who have tendered but, of course, what is in the referral for tender is publicly known and on the public record. The Minister can obviously refer to that. She can certainly refer to what is there at present. Can she confirm that the contracted service at present is for two sailings a day every day? Can she confirm that other services are being provided that are not contracted and not at the islander rate? In other words, there is no obligation on the ferry service to provide fares at the islander rate.

There are always extra sailings in the summer because it is convenient for tourists, who are important to the island. However, the islanders are concerned about their day-to-day living for the rest of the year. They want the base level of two sailings a day to be increased. Their argument is cogent. Clare Island is what I call a medium-range island in terms of its distance from the mainland. Some islands have very frequent services but the Minister would be able to argue that the boat to such an island only takes ten minutes to travel each way. A boat to other islands could take an hour and a half to get out and another hour and a half to get in. Clare Island is what I call a medium-range island. In fact, it is in the lower range. I am told it takes 20 minutes to travel to the island, unlike its neighbouring island, Inisturk. The islanders make the cogent case that there should be four sailings a day every day because it would facilitate people going to work, children going to school on the mainland and so on. There is no secondary school on the island, unlike the Aran Islands, Tory Island and Arranmore. Sustainability of the islands is at a crucial point. Can they hold their young populations? Asking children to leave home semi-permanently at 13 years of age is not great. If a more frequent service for September to spring is not contracted, is the Minister saying to us she will look at withdrawing the tender, starting again and reconfiguring it? I am disappointed it went to tender without a prior agreement among the islanders. There was obviously serious discontent on the island.

My next question relates to piers. When will the pier for Inis Oírr go to tender? Will the Minister ensure that full delegations of islanders on Inis Meáin get to see the model? It is no good telling the islanders that one person can do down on his or her own. I know there are restrictions because of Covid but small groups can be allowed in. It is important that everybody is happy with the design for whatever is being proposed for Inis Meáin and, therefore, it is important they see the wave model in Cork.

Will the Minister expedite the development of proposals for a safe pier in or around Roonagh? The problem of winter berthing for Clare Island and Inisturk is ongoing. It will take a serious investment but we need to start down the road, otherwise services in the winter are totally variable.

My next question relates to community services programmes. There are many community centres in this country. Many tourism projects cannot operate to their full extent because without a community services programme, they are not viable.

They need some input from the social economy, but they provide huge services to the community. All of these very expensive community centres which we are investing in should be open from 8 a.m. or 9 a.m. for gyms and so on right through the day to 10 p.m. or 11 p.m. To do that staff are needed. The community services programme is great. It diverts people who would otherwise be unemployed and gives them gainful employment by providing essential services.

The next question I have is about CLÁR. When it was set up it was a comprehensive leverage funding programme. There is always an argument that if a health centre, water or sewerage services or roads are required in depopulated rural areas a cost-benefit analysis is necessary. An agency would state glibly that depopulated areas have to wait at the end of a queue because a cost-benefit analysis was not positive. CLÁR used to put up half the money or a different proportion. Suddenly the cost benefit became very attractive in terms of providing services. The same happened on the islands in terms of health services and so on. Suddenly projects jumped up the queue quite legitimately. Projects that had been waiting for funding for years and years in areas that would probably never get top of the queue received funding. Is the Minister considering reconstituting CLÁR as a comprehensive leveraged programme aimed at levelling the playing pitch in terms of basic infrastructure for the least populated parts of the country?

My final question relates to local employment services, LESs. I do not know if this issue arose before.