Mr. Fintan O'Brien:

No problem. On the last question first, I completely agree. If I, having been in the system for a long time, find it complicated, it must be a genuine challenge for someone in a community group who is trying to understand it. We are aware of the need to simplify it.

The Deputy mentioned our guests in the Gallery. One idea we focus on in rural development is that of the profession as a specialty. We talk a lot to the higher education institutes. We have funded a couple of bursaries. There is a master’s degree in research and rural development. We regard this as important. Rural development policy has come more to the forefront in recent years; it is a little more visible. There is expertise and a skill set, and there is an understanding that goes with those. One of the reasons we engage with the OECD and EU is that there are building blocks of theory and understanding. I am delighted that all the guests in the Gallery are here today.

The Deputy mentioned being from Dublin but having relatives down the country. One of the key points I made at the start is that this is not a rural issue as opposed to an urban one; they are one and the same. It is a national issue. What really gets my goat is a rural-versus-urban discussion about policy.

The OECD did not pull us up on, but would have mentioned, economic development. When we invest in remote working, a community centre or somewhere that is derelict, it delivers a benefit. However, we are trying to develop further our thinking on how it feeds into the long-term economic development of a town. Regarding our schemes in recent years, and as I implied to Deputy Aird regarding scoring, we want to know more about how the economic development will have an impact. Economic development is certainly part of the approach but there are also the social and cultural aspects. It is about getting the balance right. That would be at the centre of all our schemes. We talk to a number of agencies about this. The Western Development Commission, which falls under our aegis in the Department, announced recently that it had reached the €100 million milestone in relation to its Western Investment Fund. It is directly investing in regional SMEs. We have talked to officials in the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment, IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland during consultations. The regional enterprise plans will form part of the approach. IDA Ireland has a 55% target for regional investment over the next 15 years. That is absolutely central. It goes back to the idea of everything coming together, including jobs, facilities, housing and infrastructure. That is what it means to me. Associated developments, such as the establishment of new technological universities and remote working, are factors. Remote working has been a game changer, in my view.

I live in the midlands and the Department is based in Dublin and Ballina. The flexibility is a completely different world from what it was five years ago. I have been in a number of the remote working hubs that we fund around the country. Every time I go, I find a new story, such as somebody from Kilrush who is working for a multinational or someone who is working in Miltown Malbay for the holidays. The hubs work brilliantly and add so much to the process. Our target was to get to 400 hubs. We are pretty close; we are over 390. Many Deputies and Senators use them themselves. That has been really important.

The Deputy was asking about the quantum of investment in our suite of schemes. We have what we call the rural development investment programme. The allocations will be finalised when they go through committee at the end of the year, but I will outline what we are looking at from budget 2026: the local improvement scheme for non-private roads, €17 million; the CLÁR programme, which is focused on depopulated areas, €12 million; the town and village renewal scheme, €21 million; and the outdoor recreation scheme, which I discussed at a committee meeting here a couple of weeks back, €17 million.

The RRDF, which I suppose is the biggest of our schemes in this area, will be €60 million again this year. LEADER will be €32 million. LEADER is slightly different to the rest of them because that is a multi-annual issue. There is €180 million in that pot. The €32 million is slightly down on last year because of where we are in the programme. That will ramp up again as we go through it. Some of the things the Deputy mentioned related to those outlets. We fund the community centre investment fund outside of the rural development aspect. It is more on the community side, but there is €20 million in that for 2026.

Isolation and loneliness comprise one of those things we have been talking to people about. It is not something that is fixed by one agency or one Department. There are lots of different ways that it manifests itself and there are lots of different causes to it. I imagine that would feature in Our Rural Future. There is a number of things our Department does in relation to supporting men's and women's sheds and the social inclusion and communication activation programme, SICAP. I mentioned those community centre investment programmes and even things like the Tidy Towns groups. We are going to the Tidy Towns national awards on Friday. The amount of community involvement that those groups bring in is phenomenal to see. My favourite day of the year in the job is going to meet 600 Tidy Towns volunteers. It is just remarkable what they do and what they do in the community.

There is a recognition of the isolation and loneliness issue there. Do we have it cracked? We do not, but we are talking to various different Departments at the moment in relation to that. I think I have gotten most of what was mentioned.