Mr. William Parnell:

We spoke about jobs earlier in the session.

We work very closely with the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation. The regional action plans for jobs are key instruments in trying to support job creation. As I said in my introduction, the action plan for rural development has a lot of synergies with other Government strategies, in particular the Action Plan for Jobs and the regional action plans for jobs. It is right to focus on jobs because if we are going to improve not just employment opportunities for people in rural areas, but the social fabric, we need to have more jobs and better jobs in rural areas

I take the point on the fact some areas are weaker than others. In our discussion, we spoke about how there is not a one-size-fits-all approach. Local enterprises have a role to play. Enterprise Ireland has a role to play. Over the past month, the website of the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation has had quite a spread of jobs throughout the country. We need to get further into the regions and see what can be done to support job creation. The Leader programme is one component of this because one of the themes is supporting enterprise and job creation.

This year, through our town and village renewal scheme, we have been trying to focus on projects that will have a real economic impact not just on the towns themselves, but also their outlying areas. The town and village renewal scheme is not simply about the public realm, although that is important. Once we get people into towns and villages, we need to increase footfall and economic activity for that public realm to make a difference. In areas such as Uíbh Ráthach on the Iveragh Peninsula in Kerry, a task force has been established, arising from our action plan for rural development, to see what can be done to support the particular region. It is a Gaeltacht area. The people there have brought together some of the key Government agencies as well as local stakeholders. It is a good example. If it works well, it could be a good model.

Clare is a very rural county, and I mentioned earlier that Clare County Council has introduced its own rural development plan. It is the first county to have done so and it has appointed a rural services director. There are other schemes such as CLÁR, which the Department delivers. It reaches out to the areas of highest depopulation. It provides support for small infrastructural projects. The objective is to try to retain people in rural areas to help them with their local needs. Jobs can make a big difference and we will continue to work with our colleagues in the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation, and with other Departments such as the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport on developing greenways, or blueways in the case of Waterways Ireland.