Mr. William Parnell:

I am glad Deputy Michael Collins finished his contribution on a positive note. Within our Department's remit, we have put some investment into rural Ireland through various schemes, including the town and village scheme, CLÁR programme and the local improvement schemes, to which Deputies referred. A small amount of money for a local improvement scheme can make a major impact.

I need to be careful not to stray into issues that are best addressed on the floor of the Dáil.

I will make one or two comments and then hand over to Mr. Mulherin, who might talk about Leader. I take the point about mobile phone coverage and working with local communities. One of the advantages of these broadband officers is that they are acting as a go-between or facilitator between the local communities and the service providers. There is nothing secret about the names of broadband officers. We have listed them in a reply to a parliamentary question so if a member needs the name of a local broadband officer, we can certainly provide it.

The other thing I can comment on is rural-proofing in so far as to say that in order to strengthen the concept of rural-proofing, the Action Plan for Rural Development contains an action to develop a new and effective rural-proofing model which will ensure that rural development issues are considered in the decision-making processes of all Departments and State bodies and agencies. When the Minister appeared before the select committee on 15 November, the issue of rural-proofing came up. My recollection is that the Minister indicated that he would be happy to have an input from the committee regarding moving forward with that particular action. Mr. Mulherin will be in a position to comment on Leader.