Ms Aisling Moran:

I am glad to hear that the Senator has such a grá for the islands. I will be brief. The Senator spoke about community development under one umbrella. I hope that Ms Ní Ghóill and Mr. Murray have got the message across. I do not like to use the word "jaded", but both of them have worked in community development for more than 30 years. I am also a worker in the community development industry. Our workers spend longer working on islands than most other places. From my experience over the past decade, "development" should be taken out of the title because we are just fighting to stand still. The ideas the Senator mentioned were amazing and we would love to develop them, but when we are facing issues around education, housing or air and freight services, those become the priority. The Senator spoke about harvesting rainwater and growing hemp, but we do not have the resources to investigate those 100%. We need to be able to, though. The Minister, Deputy Humphreys, has engaged. We are lucky, as the islands division has moved into the Department of Rural and Community Development. We met Ms Bairbre Nic Aonghusa, who is keen on community development and recognised many of the issues.

Much of what Senator Garvey has raised has to do with meaningful consultation and being heard within the issues, but I agree that community development is the way forward. As with everyone, we are underresourced. If each comhar cumann, community development project and the wider community development sector had more resources, we could achieve more. I hope that the interdepartmental committee will tackle some of the issues the Senator raised, as we currently need to go to each Department. The islands division does a great job in trying to bring all of this together, but the area is very far ranging. We all need to be sitting at the table and working together. It would be great if there was a national mandate for every Department to have the islands as a priority and to change its policy, as that is when real change would happen.