Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is a pleasure to be here today to see this historic moment. It is the first time a committee is meeting outside the Dáil and on the islands. As someone from Dublin, as I said earlier, the only islands we have are traffic islands so it is a deep learning experience. We were on Bere Island last year and took away so many positives from that experience.

My role within Sinn Féin is as a community development spokesperson and what I see on the islands is an incredible amount of community-led and community-supported development. It is a real eyeopener to see how so much comes from the islands. People provide so much support for each other and look at new and innovative ways of how they can sustain themselves on the islands and look at housing, biodiversity, tourism and its impact on the island as well. There is that sort of juggle between how to get more people onto the islands to live and to visit and at the same time protecting the islands. That is a really incredible struggle and I see that as somebody coming from the outside.

The question I ask is around the challenges the islands have as a community and looking at community-led projects, how the islanders ensure they get their voices heard. Due to being so remote and away from the mainland, Dublin and places where there is power, how do they ensure they get their voices heard, whether it be on biodiversity, tourism, education, health or housing? I am very interested in that part.