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

If Galway and Mayo county councils came to the Department with a proposal to do all of the engineering studies on the railway line between Athenry and Claremorris, would it consider that for the rural regeneration and development fund? It would be a bold statement for the west. It is a rural area that is not in my constituency, but it is a totemic project that the west badly needs. We need to get to the point where we know exactly what has to be done. It is an existing railway line in State ownership. There are tracks, which cannot be used. It is not a question of having to acquire anything. We could do all of the survey work and so on regarding what is required to make the service operational in a modern context for railway lines. Dargan built the piece between Athenry and Tuam to an incredibly high standard. I understand there is one level crossing on the line. It is a fantastic railway line, built to the highest national standards. North of that, there are more basic types of railway line. It is all full gauge. I would be interested in hearing the views of the Minister on whether the rural regeneration and development fund would be used to make an even bolder statement than it has made up to now and make a real impact.

CLÁR is a fine scheme, but some basic services in rural Ireland do not exist and we will not get them any day soon. The Department, whether through the islands funds or CLÁR funding, should use the money on a leveraged basis as was done previously to jiggle up Departments in order to deal with issues where it has been stated that a cost-benefit analysis does not stand up. I have the same view on islands. The islands capital fund should be used to get agencies that are dragging their feet and have said there is not a critical mass in favour of projects.

Fair play to the Government. I backed it at the time. Again, I went against what my party said about rural broadband, and it won. The rural broadband scheme is absolutely fantastic in principle and practice. LIS should bring a road to every house in the country. The electricity supply goes to every house in the country. We now need water to every house in the country. This is basic rural living. I am excluding those with group water schemes and those that are part of recognised group water schemes. 10% of houses are dependent on private sources and we do not know how good those sources are. The Department should consider co-funding a scheme to accelerate this with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage.

The Minister's colleague instituted a policy to introduce sewerage schemes in towns. What will happen is that the larger on-sewer towns in stronger areas will get services and smaller places that are dying will die even more quickly. The Department has to be disruptive. That is the whole idea of having a Department for rural areas rather than leaving things to a vertical divide. The Minister should decide to co-fund schemes, but only for very small places.

I refer to rural depopulation. If we build five or ten houses in every small village which has a church, shop and school and they all have a wastewater system, we will certainly find people going back to those areas because they would be able to get a house, whether they were from the area. I ask the Minister to consider whether the Department should perhaps get a bit more disruptive of the normal way of doing things which will always leave the most rural and isolated areas to the last. The census figures show that the population is growing hugely in some areas, but around the margins.

Finally, can I make one more comment?