William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)

There is nobody elected who does not agree with what Dr. Ó Caoimh is saying. It is about trying to make it workable. As I said, in the next 20 or 30 years, we will have to think outside the box to see what is going to happen. We have to try to visualise where our communities are going to be. That is why I said earlier that we should strive as public representatives. I do not know any public representative who would like to see a school close in his or her area. I see schools that closed in the 1950s, the old school houses. I am repeating myself but I am saying it only because the issue of communities was brought up. The towns have now moved out to those rural schools and they may be needed. We should learn from what happened. It is the same with the old railway lines, which were laid through sheer sweat, and dug by hand without machinery or anything else.

What did we do? Somebody somewhere decided we would close down these railways as they were no longer needed. Was there nobody out there to say, "Stop, leave them as it is. Let's go forward for the next 20, 30 years and see what happens"? We should have all those railway lines going into the rural areas where they were. The witnesses spoke about Cork and the old railway line going in there. It is absolutely disgraceful. Anyway, that was a huge mistake Ireland made and I do not want to see any mistakes made now.

I strongly believe that when we build something and we have schools in your local area, bus stops and everything, we should keep them there. That relates back to the planning. If we allowed people to live and build their houses in those areas, they would all be vibrant. It is not everybody. Dr. Ó Caoimh is an example here today. He is remotely feeding into this meeting and it is working 100%. There are people in this country who would like to live in areas like where he is today and they should be afforded that opportunity. Some 20 years ago, they could not do that because their job was in Dublin or whatever. Five or six years ago, Dr. Ó Caoimh would have had to be up here In Leinster House to take part in the meeting. He would have had to leave at 5 o'clock in the morning to be here, but people no longer have to do that. They can do their work remotely. Everybody needs to take a few minutes to step back - all the planners and the people who are making these rules - and say, "We are where we are and all this has moved on. Let's look at what we could do for the next 20 years in a rural community." There is no point talking about it if you are not going to do something. That is all I want to say on that.

I do not see anything wrong with what the witnesses' organisations are doing or what has been spent on it for years. They have gone into communities that are so deprived, did work there with the people, brought the people passionately with them and supported all the different funds. All that started out voluntarily. In fact, there were a lot of IFA people involved at the time because it was rural. It then grew and grew. There is not a community now throughout my county that they do not touch, whether it is rural or urban. The one good thing about it is that initiatives like those for people who are living on their own and are getting older, they can go in there and cut the grass at a reasonable price, or do the shopping for them and visit them. That is very important and it is all part of their remit.

That funding is being well spent; there is no question about it. It is all part of what we are trying to do. In all my years on that committee talking about value for money, you can really see value for money in this. You can see it on the ground and you can allude to it at county council meetings.