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

Yes, but what we are finding, taking my constituency and Connemara, is that there are growing populations in the parts from which it is possible to commute to Galway. My understanding is that beyond a place called Camas, in Rosmuck, which the Minister will have heard of, Kilkieran, Carna, Roundstone and Ballyconneely, around that big circle, in Recess and around Clifden, populations are in decline.

I suggest that we will probably find the same in west Mayo. It is growing in and around Castlebar, Claremorris and Ballina, but once you get out of the drag of the commuter belt, which is about 50 km, you go over a cliff. We still have that challenge. I would say we might find the same thing in Roscommon. Has the Department done this mapping exercise on a sub-county basis, on an electoral district basis or just above the electoral district level to see what is gaining and what is losing? It is not uniform. It would be surprising if it was. It is funny, given there are so many pressures and problems in and around the urban areas. I see it every day. In one half of my constituency the schools are not big enough, there is too much traffic, we do not have houses and we do not have enough childcare places. In the other half of the constituency, we have the facilities. The Minister is dead right. I live in rural Ireland. I part I live in is just about stable. It is a fantastic place to live and I would not choose to live anywhere else, even though I am city-born, city-bred and city-educated. The point is that these areas have the capacity to take this growth in population. It is only counteracting the voids of the empty classrooms and so on. On the whole, we could do with reversing the trend. I think it would be very interesting and useful for us to have that mapped and to look at it. Perhaps the committee could examine the issue as well.