Mr. Simon Murray:

On the housing issue, no more than on the mainland it is a very complicated situation. Turnkey properties are often available for sale on islands. The local authorities never purchase these properties to solve housing needs across the islands. They always seem to want to take the long route of securing sites and building which is considerably costlier as a rule. There may be a block there in local authority rules, but surely it should be changed for islands which are geographically confined and there is only so much room on an island for housing in the first place. It is a major issue because, as Ms Moran said, if people cannot live on the islands the domino effect from that is that everything else is in the negative. If an island cannot maintain its population, everything else falls apart after that. Keeping our communities on the islands is crucial; that is Comhdháil's main aim. Hopefully, that is also the Government's main aim, but sometimes it is questionable.

On the infrastructure budget, I know money was tight in the country a few years ago but still I do not think there was any excuse that no money was requested by the island section from the Department - at least that is what I was told at the time. I was shocked at the time because regardless of the overall budgetary constraints across Departments, a request should always go in to seek funding for the islands. I would hope there will never be a repeat of that again. The thinking on that needs to be expanded so that budgets that are sought are realistic to achieve all the aims and objectives we are talking about here today. Hopefully that mindset will shift. I believe the work of this committee will have a significant part to play in that.