James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

That is okay. When I say, "That is okay," I understand that is the Minister's current response and we will discuss it further.

I will make one final point. It is an overall view of Government policy in general. I have seen this done successfully in other countries I have visited. In Ireland, when you have a town or an area that is heavily neglected through long-term policy failures, the Government as a whole fails to recognise that with a lot more careful thought and proactive interaction between local authorities and different Government agencies and Departments, such as IDA Ireland, Transport Infrastructure Ireland, the NTA, the Departments of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Transport and, obviously, public expenditure, there needs to be an authority created in Ireland in some shape or fashion that can go into towns that are in not-good condition that desperately need very substantial investment to try to turn their fortunes around, whether by bringing in an employer, building infrastructure that is required or looking at how one improves education in those areas. It is not only in towns like Youghal. It is in many parts of Dublin city. It is in parts all over the west of Ireland where there are towns that are suffering from deprivation and dereliction. It really annoys me.

The reason I feel obliged to say that to the Minister is that he has one of the privileged positions of the top three most powerful politicians in Cabinet leading one of the Government parties in the three-party arrangement that we have in government at present. It would be remiss of me not to say it to the Minister. This is something that merits discussion at Cabinet because these are the types of policies that leave legacies behind in Governments where there is a proactive approach taken. The policies that we have at present around rural regeneration are not hitting where they need to do.

What really messes it up in rural Ireland is the fact that the population cut-off for accessing the funds that are currently coming out from local government are restrictive. It cuts out many of these towns that have populations of 3,500 up to 10,000. They need to be of a larger scale in order to access the urban regeneration funding and some of them are too big to get access to rural regeneration. In the forthcoming budget, as a final act, this is something that could make a positive proactive difference to so many towns such as Youghal around the country.