Mr. Fintan O'Brien:

I will try my best. The Deputy touched on many different policy areas which have different issues and challenges. It highlights what we mean when we talk about a whole-of-government approach. This is challenging but it is what we are trying to capture as best we can. I will try to respond to the Deputy's points in the order he mentioned them.

I hope the committee will understand that I am not a housing expert, but the centrality of housing is coming through the process. When our Department invests in community centres, walkways or greenways, they are linked to the idea that they feed into viable rural communities. It is not one thing over another but rather a cross-government approach that we are trying to get to.

The idea of joined-up thinking is entirely common sense. I do not have any issue with it but common sense is not always that common. We certainly keep it in mind when developing our policies. We are talking to the Department of housing in relation to national housing policy. We know that the Department of tourism has been developing its tourism policy and we are trying to engage on that and make sure there is a joined-up approach. National policy on tourism has to be linked in with how that works in rural Ireland. This came through in the consultation a lot. The same point applies to disability strategies. Whatever it might be, that joined-up thinking is really important.

What the Deputy said about County Laois is reflective of the balance we are trying to get. I appreciate the Deputy's comments in relation to some of the good investments that have been made, but there is more to do. It is not a case of cheerleading for all the things that have been done but ensuring a balance. Yes, there is positivity and growth, but there is more to be done. That is what we are trying to get in the policy. The bus that goes across County Laois is a brilliant example of something simple that works amazingly. This has brought many benefits to the people in the area. I know that an RRDF project is near to opening in Portarlington as well. That is going to be a good day. I am looking forward to that one.

Volunteers, who were mentioned by the Deputy, are the key to it all. In the Department, we provide pots of money for schemes. Without volunteers, community groups and local authorities driving things on, they are just pots of money. There has been quite a lot of talk about volunteer fatigue, which was highlighted by the OECD recently. Do we keep on going back to the same guys? We need to think about how we support that. There is a volunteer strategy coming. When we did the rural youth assembly recently, I was very struck by the passion and interest of that cohort of young people in being involved in their communities. That gave me a bit of hope that maybe it is not just the same people again and again.

Local authorities are a key element. We spend a lot of time talking to local authorities. They have a lot on their plate. They are doing an awful lot of the heavy work in relation to our investments. One of the things we are trying to do is to support them a little bit more. We now have what we call capital delivery teams. This is basically a cohort of people in local authorities who are focusing on getting our rural development schemes done. That is about delivery, speed and quality. This model is starting to work really well.

Regarding the outcome of assessment processes, they are competitive processes and for quite a lot of our schemes demand outstrips the available funding. The Deputy asked for clarity on how we actually mark them. There are different things for different schemes. We look at things such as whether the application ties in with our policies on rural development and whether it fits the scheme's objectives. As I mentioned to Senator O'Reilly, we sometimes change them from year to year, depending on the feedback we receive. Cost is a massive element, and again this goes back to earlier comments on inflationary costs.

Regarding delivery, within local authorities we look at delivery records and financing in hand to make sure the capacity is still there to deliver more projects. I think the capital delivery team is really helping in this regard. We also consider the intended impacts or results of a project. What the project is actually going to deliver is another element of the scoring part of it. There also has to be a demonstration of need, and that is linked to geography and the dispersal of funding. We do not want to be in a situation where we are going back to the same spot and funding the same town again and again.

We do examine geographical dispersal. I understand it is frustrating to have an application refused when all the work goes into it and the community is behind it. We do, however, engage with local authorities after the process to give them feedback. For example, we intend to open another category 1 under the RRDF later this year. For the past couple of months, we have talked to the local authorities about the possibility of refocusing certain projects that might not have got through before or examining elements that caused concern. There is ongoing engagement to help the projects to get through. We like funding projects, but at the end of the day, it is a competitive process. I hope that answers a good deal of the Deputy’s questions.