Dr. David Meredith:

I will come back to that point separately. In terms of the other aspect of emigration and migration, it is important to point out that as young people leave older people return such that even in areas that are experiencing aggregate population decline there is migration, but of people over 55 years of age. We do not know the reason for this but my guess is that it relates to older people returning to take over a family business or farm or to take on caring responsibilities for elderly relatives. It is also possible that people are retiring to the countryside. All of that points to the fact that people are able to do this at a particular point in their lives, perhaps because they are secure in their career or may be retired.

Senator Ó Clochartaigh mentioned the Trutz Haase deprivation index. It is an incredibly useful tool. It was the basis on which the funding was allocated to the Leader programme this time round. It is an evidenced-based tool which we can all look to and evaluate. I have had discussions with Trutz Haase on the development of the deprivation index, which is where the next piece of research comes in. A lot of deprivation in rural areas is deprivation of opportunity. In other words it is about distance from places or accessibility to services. This needs to be brought into that index, in my view, so that we are not only looking at solely socioeconomic deprivation but also the deprivation of opportunity, which is critical and explains much of what we see around migration patterns.

Senator Marie-Louise O'Donnell also asked what type of leadership is required. What we need is creative leadership.