Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

In fairness, the proof of the pudding is in the eating and we can all see the huge difference that rural investment is making right across communities, towns and villages the length and breadth of the country. The regional enterprise development fund sits with the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and we have a role in complementing that in terms of providing infrastructure. The committee will be very familiar with the remote working hubs and we have been making a lot of investment in town centres. In particular, there has been investment in a number of enterprise centres which are mainly community-owned or local authority-driven. We work closely with the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment to make sure there is no overlap and that we get the best value for money.

I have not actually seen the particular ESRI report to which the Chairman referred but we will continue to evaluate and make sure that we are getting a good bang for our buck, as they say, in terms of the investment we are making in rural Ireland.