Mr. Simon Murray:

Most Deputies have touched on the haphazard approach and the lack of island proofing, which is a common theme from the perspective of Comhdháil na hÉireann. Two of the issues have been touched on, namely, the 20% reduction in travel, which, bizarrely, did not translate to the sea and air services to the islands, and also the SEAI retrofit grant, which did not take into account the associated costs. Considering the pressures on construction in this country and how hard it is to get people to do anything in the first place, this grant is going to make that even harder. We would start with the obvious thing, which is the contractors on the island, who are on the ground and are local, and there might be some chance of getting that work done, but they are excluded with the €1 million cap and the lack of a top-up to take into the consideration the extra costs of islands. They are two prime examples that have been touched on in this meeting where island thinking is not being used.

We need to be considered. It is the work of the islands division to make this part of everything that is happening through different grant systems and the availability of any regulations in regard to island living, to encompass the islands as one lot in the same way as with the LEADER programme. It needs to be thought of in the context of whether this works for the islands or whether there is a nuance that needs to be adopted to make this work for the islands. We need to have that thought process at the start rather than always having to come in at the end, which is what we are doing now yet again, to try to backtrack what has just been done to make it adaptable in the island context. It is frustrating for islanders.

We are looking at the islands development document which came out in 1996. It is now 26 years later and we are trying to do the next phase of that, to update it, so to speak, when that is a huge gap in itself. It has to be to the forefront of the thought process, where islands are dealt with in a lot capacity. Like the SEAI grant, like the 20% reduction, why was it not automatically understood that this is going to be a problem on the islands? If the contractors cannot meet the threshold, then it can be adapted and, as Mr. Walsh mentioned with regard to the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine grants, it does not take a lot to do it. Deputy Ó Cuív said it. We do not have to change all of the regulations and we just need to do a little bit of tweaking of the regulations that are there to bring them into the context of island living. That is across everything - across planning for housing, across the health situation and across what the Chairman, Deputy Naughten, knows in regard to communications and especially in regard to broadband.

If, through the work of this committee and the interdepartmental committee, that is driven home and that is one of the main legs of the stool that comes out of this whole conversation, namely, that islands are thought of in all of the processes in regard to anything that is required, that is probably the best achievement that can happen. We do not want to go back to another 25 years of always trying to remind people that, hello, there are islands off the coast, there are people living on them and we would like that to continue. That is kind of where we are at the moment. There has been a lot of work done, a lot of talk and then a big gap with nothing. Now, we need to get back to getting work done across the islands in every capacity. The powers that be, whether it is Government Departments or county councils - it does not matter where it is coming from – need to consider the islands in the context of whatever is coming forward at the time. Hopefully, we can drive that home, get that thought process going and get it to continue so islands will be constantly thought of and not forgotten again.