Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I disagree. Soon we will discuss the ECC timber mill which has invested between €3 million and €5 million in recent years because it is big enough to get money from a bank. People come to my office who have an idea and no money, but they are not the ones who will create employment in rural Ireland.

I remember sitting in a hall years ago when grants like that were available. My successor in the co-op and I were present and made a quick calculation, breaking it down village by village, and we concluded there was no money in the fund. It would have been better to park it to get to somewhere with serious and significant funding to have the development we wanted. We were part of a small rural village, but that was our view and we were very hard-headed. I have made the case strongly and would make it straight to the Europeans. They are not living in the real world. I wish some of them would come here to try to develop rural areas and they would soon find out what the reality was. This process is of no consequence in solving the major issues we face as communities in rural Ireland who are trying to find work for our people.