John Paul O'Shea (Cork North-West, Fine Gael)

I appreciate that. I will also ask about collaboration with local authorities. In my own local authority, Cork County Council, there has been great collaboration with the Department. Continued collaboration will allow for the success of a number of projects and schemes in the Department. Libraries were mentioned earlier, which are a positive. I am grateful for the ongoing relationship the Department has with the local authorities. My Open Library, for example, is a programme that has been well received in local authorities across the country, including Cork County Council.

The Minister might comment on the community centre investment fund, which has been a game-changer for many rural community centres. As a public representative, I assume the Minister uses community centres for constituency clinics. There has been many a cold winter evening when I have been in community centres. We should review the community centre investment fund and how advanced the community centres have become because of the grants of €25,000, €30,000 and €50,000 that have been available. That money has been very well spent in communities in recent months and years. The Department should certainly consider continuing that fund into the future because community centres are the first port of call for what the members of our community do over a term. We need to ensure that people are included and socially active in their communities and the community centre is very much a part of that.

Funding for men's sheds was mentioned earlier in the context of the Revised Estimates but there was no opportunity to get an answer. Perhaps there will be an opportunity to review the funding for some women's sheds across the system. I know that men's sheds received funding recently, which was well received.

I also ask about Tidy Towns groups. When the small contribution that the Department makes of between €1,000 and €3,000 to the groups is supplemented by the local authority funding, they can make a real impact. Collaboration with local authorities for funding for Tidy Towns groups throughout the country is very welcome indeed.

Perhaps the Minister will reply to my few comments. I will also raise the issue of funding for rural transport, as was mentioned earlier. The continuation of that funding is very important. We were delighted to have the Minister in Newmarket recently for the relaunch of the 243 bus service, which is now providing five services a day for rural towns, such as Newmarket, Kanturk and Mallow, with access to larger urban networks from which commuters can access train facilities and more frequent bus services. The continued roll-out of those will be very important.

There is a number in the pipeline this year in my county and across the country but we need to keep the pressure on to get them active and operational as soon as possible.