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

I thank the Ministers. On my behalf it is good to see so much spend going on in the Department for 2025. I thank the Minister, Minister of State and their officials for coming in this morning.

On rural regeneration development, it is good to see that is being maintained at €60 million for the current year. It has made huge advantages and advances in different communities. Lots of different communities that could only get a small fraction of spend before, now have real investment as part of that fund. I see many towns and villages have a real injection of funding because of that. CLÁR is a huge aspect and I welcome the Minister's comments on reviewing the CLÁR areas for the future, because 2006 was the last time we had that map devised. It is good to see there is an extra €2 million as part of that. The local improvement scheme has been discussed in terms of where we are at with it, and the opportunities to have further funding going forward. It is good to see from the Minister's remarks that as part of the next capital funding programme LEADER will play a pivotal role and be a core aspect of that.

I have one comment. We recently did funding for men's sheds. I know are a number of women's sheds in my area that were disappointed they were not included. The Minister might have a few euro left to allocate to women's sheds. On a serious note, they provide a valuable service to the communities there. I know one in my own area in Freemount has a huge number of women enrolled in the women's shed. They have been productive in their meetings in the past number of weeks. On rural transport, I know it does not particularly come under the Minister's area, but it is part of his Department in promoting rural activity. The Connecting Ireland rural mobility plan has played a huge role in the past months and years in advancing rural Ireland. I look forward to that continued roll-out.