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

My first question is on the rural regeneration and development fund, RRDF. There is an idea floating around that we need to do something very strategic with that money. It is quite a significant amount of money over a number of years. One of the ideas we are exploring is that an application would be sent in under the RRDF by Mayo and Galway county councils to part-fund the reopening of the western railway corridor. As RRDF funding already has been made available for a passing loop between Athenry and Galway, it seems railway lines are not out of the reckoning.

Further, I would be totally supportive of the Minister using this same process, not for railway lines in Monaghan, but the Ulster Canal. I do not know if she got any RRDF money for the Ulster Canal but it is the kind of strategic development we need in rural Ireland. If we are talking about rural development, this is it. This is it on a big scale. We can be doing town renewal and all the rest until the cows come home, but it will not have the impact of some of the bigger infrastructure projects such as the Ulster Canal, which the Minister knows I am a great supporter of, and the railway line connection that the Minister of Transport felt reluctant to let go of. What would the attitude of the Minister and her Department be if we could use some of our call here, as Galway and Mayo county councils make the pitch that this is what the priority of the people on the ground is?

The second question I wish to raise is CLÁR funding. The intent is to widen the number of programmes, because it is fairly constrained at the moment. In particular, and I have made this point to the Minister before, there was a group order top-up scheme. Basically, groups of houses that still are reliant on wells and so on could join up with public schemes. Sometimes, in the more remote areas there are five, ten or 15 houses that were never joined up to any scheme. There was a top-up scheme there previously. It was very effective in making these affordable and giving price certainty. Would the Minister look at reopening that?

My next question is on the local improvement scheme, LIS. Can the Minister let us know when the people will be told to get their applications in and when allocations will be made to the councils? I do not know why it does not happen in the back end of the year rather than the beginning of the year, once the Estimate and the budget are fixed. Even now, can the Minister tell us when people can apply to the councils? Second, this committee recommended last year that the farmer rule be abolished. The farmer rule for the LIS relates to an Ireland that no longer exists. Of the vast majority of people in rural Ireland - there an awful lot of people in rural Ireland - there are only 120,000 herd owners. Therefore, only about 10% of the people are farmers. Thankfully, we have diversified economies, and we have always had diversified economies. When one looks back in the 19th century, there was the gréasaí, the siúinéir, and all the different people with the different professions living out in the countryside. Will the Minister consider getting rid of that anachronistic rule on farmers being required for that scheme?

I have a number of questions on the islands. I note the capital money has gone up to €4.644 million, which one would welcome, but behind the figure, there is a story. I presume that was to commence the work on Inis Oirr Pier. However, what I am hearing now is that due to foreshore licences, that will not happen. What will the Minister do with that money to make sure it is spent on the islands? I am told that there is a new environmental process to go through. This is for a pier that got planning permission in 2008. It has my head done in. If is going ahead and the Minister cracked that nut, I applaud her. However, if it is not going ahead, can we spend the money on something else and carry it over at the end of the year and not give the money back? Similarly, there is a need an tine a chur faoi chosa na Roinne agus na comhairle contae. We need to put fire under, at every level, to make sure that these piers progress fast and that Inis Meáin, as well as that, progresses fairly fast.

My annual plea to the Minister is on the fine airstrips in Inishbofin and in Cleggan. The cost of providing the service from Na Mine to Cleggan and Inishbofin would be about, I am told, €600,000 per year which, in the greater scheme of what the Minister is spending on islands, is not an awful lot of money. Would the Minister consider providing that necessary link? As I have pointed out time and again, Inishbofin is much further from Galway and much further out than the Aran Islands. The Minister knows the advantage of the air service on the Aran Islands as she has availed of it and she knows how handy it is. Can the Minister imagine how it takes an hour and a half to two hours to drive to Cleggan, and then one has to get a 40-minute boat? From the island, the aeroplane could have her in Na Mine, where she got the aeroplane from, in about 20 to 30 minutes. It could be for a very modest fee because the aeroplanes, the servicing, the pilots and all the other things are there. The pilots are not busy all day. Would the Minister consider going ahead and making Inishbofin air service operable, based from Na Mine, in order that she is doing it on an additional cost basis?

On the Cleggan airstrip, I understand there is an application in with the Minister’s Department to come to some arrangement with her Department on using part of the site in Cleggan for a museum of transatlantic history. This relates to aviators John Alcock and Arthur Brown. It will be a great attraction for Connemara and it would bring people into the Cleggan peninsula. Could the Minister arrange for her officials to meet the people who contacted the Department about that and see what the possibilities of progressing this are?

My final point is on the broadband hubs, which are fine. I hear what the Minister is saying about remote working. I agree with her that not everybody wants to work at home all of the time. Particularly, if one lives in a smaller house in an urban setting, that will become a very big issue. In rural areas at least, most people have half-acre sites, so they can find some corner to put in an office that is a little bit more remote than it would be in a standard three-bedroom urban dwelling. That said, they are important. Even though it is not directly under the Minister’s remit, we have to stress again, related to the temporary broadband hubs while we are waiting for the roll out of broadband, that what the people want in the first place is fibre in their houses.

I hope the Minister will take back to her Cabinet colleagues the message that it is sop in áit na scuaibe - a straw rather than a brush which, as the Minister will know, would not clean a floor too well - to be telling people that they already got their broadband hubs. They are not interested in that. They are interested in remote working. They are interested in using hubs on occasions, but the number one demand from adults, children and older people is fibre to the home. For the adults, this is for work and pleasure; for the young people it is for study and pleasure and for the older people it is for pleasure and, in many cases, because of the new technologies in terms of cameras and so on it enables families to monitor their elderly loved ones and to be aware of any falls etc., even when the latter are on the other side of the world. I am begging the Minister to do what she can to persuade her colleagues of the need to get this done faster than it is being done now.