Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I welcome the witnesses and remind those in attendance to make sure that their mobile phones are switched off or in silent mode.

Any members of the committee who wish to attend this meeting remotely must do so from within the precincts of Leinster House. This is due to the constitutional requirement that in order to participate in public meetings, members must be physically present within the confines of the place where Parliament has chosen to sit. In today’s case, following agreement of both Houses of the Oireachtas, the Parliament precincts include Árainn Mhór. This is the first time that the parliamentary precincts have included an offshore island.

This meeting is the first official Oireachtas business to be held on an offshore island. It signifies the importance of involving all people of Ireland in the democratic process. We as members of this committee have a responsibility to represent the interests, concerns and aspirations of island communities throughout our country. However, to effectively do this, we must actively engage with you. That is why the members of this committee were determined to ensure that Ireland’s first ever live parliamentary broadcast outside the city of Dublin would take place on an offshore island. In fact, I believe this may very well be the first live broadcast of a national parliamentary hearing on an offshore island globally.

Through the participation of all involved here today in this historic meeting, we are demonstrating how broadband technology can bring parliamentary democracy closer to the people. I hope this can act as a beacon of best practice for other parliamentary committees, in Ireland and elsewhere.

We are grateful to the islanders who have facilitated the broadcast of this live meeting and for affording members the opportunity to see how advances in communications technology allow people a real and sustainable way to live and work remotely in rural areas.

Today we will hear of the unique challenges faced by island communities but we will also hear of solutions, which, if adopted, not only can address these challenges but can help support isolated communities across Ireland and across the world.

Before we start, I wish to explain some limitations to parliamentary privilege and the practice of the Houses as regards references you may make to any other person in your evidence. The evidence of witnesses physically present or who give evidence from within the parliamentary precincts is protected pursuant to both the Constitution and statute by absolute privilege. This means they have an absolute defence against any defamation action for anything they may say in this meeting. However, they are expected not to abuse this privilege. It is my duty as Cathaoirleach to ensure that privilege is not abused.

However, one of today’s witnesses is giving her evidence remotely from a place outside the parliamentary precincts and, as such, may not benefit from the same level of immunity from legal proceedings as a witness physically present does. Such witnesses have already been advised that they may think it appropriate to take legal advice on this matter.

Witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in respect of an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative they comply with any such direction.

Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against any person or entity outside the Houses or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.

The committee will now consider the operation of the national and local policies that affect islanders. To this end, we will discuss the following: climate neutrality and biodiversity on the islands with representatives of Comharchumann Fuinnimh Oileáin Árann Teoranta, Aran Islands Energy Co-operative; housing and sustaining communities on offshore islands with academics from University College Cork's school of applied of social sciences and representatives of the island communities, namely, Comhar na nOileán and Comhdháil Oileáin na hÉireann; and e-health and living longer in the islands with representatives from the health innovation via engineering, HIVE, lab at University of Galway and one of the general practitioners serving Clare Island and Inishbiggle. These issue are of critical importance to this committee and have been a focus of ongoing work of the committee, including the examination of the sustainable development goals and public service performance targets. The issues also encompass my role as chairperson of the Inter-Parliamentary Union working group on science and technology, which has a global remit to develop greater engagement between the scientific community and national parliaments.

I welcome the manager of Comharchumann Fuinnimh Oileáin Árann Teoranta, the Aran Islands Energy Co-operative, Ms Avril Ní Shearcaigh, who is joining remotely. I invite Ms Ní Shearcaigh to make her opening statement.

Ms Avril N? Shearcaigh:

I am a native of the Aran Islands in County Galway and I am currently employed as the manager of Comharchumann Fuinnimh Oileáin Árann Teoranta, the Aran Islands Energy Co-Operative. Our co-operative has five main goals, which are also in line with the recently published islands policy and its accompanying action plan. We believe the energy transition offers us a unique opportunity to significantly contribute-----

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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Could Ms Ní Shearcaigh pause for a minute? There seems to be a problem with the audio at this end. Apologies for that. I do not know if it can be heard on the broadcast but we have a difficulty here in the room with the audio. We have the technical people looking at it at the moment.

Could Ms Ní Shearcaigh turn the microphone on her laptop on?

Ms Avril N? Shearcaigh:

Good morning.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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Now we have you.

Ms Avril N? Shearcaigh:

Sorry about that. I am a native of the Aran Islands in County Galway and I am currently employed as the manager of Comharchumann Fuinnimh Oileáin Árann Teoranta, the Aran Islands Energy Co-Operative. Our co-operative has five main goals, which are also in line with the recently published islands policy and accompanying action plan. We believe the energy transition offers us a unique opportunity to significantly contribute towards achieving these common goals. I will not list out how exactly we plan to achieve these goals, but I will list the goals.

Our number one goal is to stabilise and sustainably increase the population on the three islands; number two is to maintain the language, culture and heritage of our three islands; number three is to be sensitive to the beauty and richness of the natural environment in which we live; number four is to increase the comfort, energy efficiency and sustainability of our homes and transport; and number five is to promote the three Aran Islands as lighthouse communities, offering inspiration, support and examples of best practice to other communities in Ireland and throughout the world.

In order for our offshore islands to thrive, we need to ensure that the communities living on them are empowered and resilient, and that the disadvantages associated with living on our offshore islands ultimately do not outweigh the advantages. Many challenges felt by mainland communities are often felt earlier and more keenly by island communities. This is true of climate change, the cost of living and in areas such as housing, education, health and transport. The energy transition on our islands can have a positive impact in all of these areas, but not without Government support and strong political will.

By generating our own community-owned, clean energy locally, we can make the islands self sufficient, generate additional employment opportunities, lower energy costs and generate a public income to support local community development projects.

This could improve the standard of living on islands, the amenities available to locals, the services available and much more. By retrofitting homes and businesses on the islands to a high standard we can improve the living conditions in the often older, less efficient and more expensive to run homes and even free up additional homes which have been left vacant. This would again aid significantly in lowering the cost of living on our islands, solve some of the issues we have relating to the shortage of housing, improve the health and well-being of our residents and, in turn, aid in the re-growth of the islands' population.

By decarbonising the transport systems both on and to the islands we can reduce our carbon footprint. On the Aran Islands, transport, mainly transport to the islands, accounts for more than 60% of our carbon emissions, according to our energy master plan.

There is no shortage of examples available to show how important the energy transition on the islands could be in solving many of the challenges we face. Not only would carrying out this important work help with the problems we face now, it would also help to sustain the islands long into the future.

I understand that all I have outlined will take significant investment from the Government and buy-in from organisations such as the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU, ESB Networks, local authorities and many more. The will of the community on the Aran Islands is certainly there and I have no doubt it is there on the other islands too. So far, we on the Aran Islands have retrofitted 50% of buildings on the islands to some degree. Many homes have photovoltaic, PV, panels generating electricity, as well as electric vehicles, EVs, and heat pumps. We are finding it increasingly difficult, however, to continue this work without additional measures and funding above and beyond what is already available. We recognise the new efforts being made through the living islands policy aim to tackle some of these issues but that support needs to be scaled up drastically if we are to grasp the opportunity we now have.

The islands also present a valuable opportunity to the Government to trial a transition to clean energy which maximises the secondary benefits for its citizens, as I have outlined, and where valuable lessons can be learned before scaling up a similar transition for the rest of the country.

I thank the committee for inviting me to attend and for giving us this opportunity. Go raibh maith agaibh.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I thank Ms Ní Shearcaigh for her presentation and engagement with the committee. I will now open the meeting up to members for questions. I call the Leas-Chathaoirleach, Deputy Ó Cathasaigh.

Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party)
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I dtosach báire, gabhaim buíochas as ucht na fáilte croíúla atá faighte againn anseo ó mhuintir Árainn Mhór. Gabhaim buíochas leis an bhfoireann uilig freisin. Tá an-chuid oibre teicniúla déanta ag an bhfoireann chun gur féidir linn a bheith anseo inniu. Is lá stairiúil é. Táimid go léir mar ionadaithe ar ár bpobail ach inniu tá an tOireachtas ag teacht chuig an bpobal agus ag tarlú i lár an phobail. Is lá iontach stairiúil é dá bharr sin. It is brilliant to be here. It really is the Oireachtas coming out and taking place within the community. It has always been our job to take the concerns of our communities and bring them to Dublin but it is nice that Dublin is coming down to the community as well.

I compliment Ms Ní Shearcaigh on the incredible work happening on the Aran Islands. We certainly have an opportunity to make them lighthouse communities, which is her goal. It makes for a perfect testing bed, particularly for things relating to sustainable transport. She identified that 60% of the emissions come from transport. One can see how EVs, electric bikes and shared mobility are all particularly applicable to island situations.

There is an abundance of renewables. The islands have made incredible progress on PV. One thing our offshore islands certainly do not lack is a wind resource, but there is the issue of intermittency. There are times when, as is often rehearsed, the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing, although that might be rare enough on the islands. In the context of the issue of intermittency and if the islands really want to move to a point where they are fully energy self-sufficient, what steps are they trying to take in terms of storage or interconnection? Does there need to be an upgrade in the quality of interconnection between the island grids and the grid on the mainland to allow them to move to fully decarbonised energy systems?

Ms Avril N? Shearcaigh:

I thank the Deputy. The short answer is there absolutely needs to be a drastic upgrade of the local infrastructure. For example, we are currently trying to develop a local community-owned wind turbine project. A grid assessment on it has already been done by ESB Networks. We originally sought permission for a 2.3 MW grid connection. That would allow us to export a maximum of 2.3 MW of energy onto the grid at any one time. After much debate, negotiation and deliberation, along with investigation by ESB Networks, it turned out the maximum connection it was willing to give our project was 650 KW. That was a massive reduction in the size of our project. Thankfully, our grid connection means the project will still be viable, albeit with a different payback period. The figures all match up and it still looks like it will be a viable project but it will not produce anywhere near as much energy as we need. The reason ESB Networks gave us for the decision is that anything more than 650 KW would cause voltage issues on the island. In the case of mainland projects, if there is a turbine or a solar farm, there is a dedicated export line back to the substation. That would not be possible for us on the islands and it would be cost-prohibitive. We would be feeding into the local distribution network on the islands. We have made many proposals to ESB Networks on this issue. We have answered some of the CRU's consultations and we have tried to get them to agree to testing flexibility and demand-response solutions on the islands. That could allow us to generate and use more clean energy, possibly supplemented from the national grid through the subsea cable which connects the three islands. We have not had any luck in that regard. We believe that as the number of homes on the islands with heat pumps, EVs, PV and battery storage grows, we will be able to continue to expand on that and use flexible demand-response solutions in order to help balance our grid. This is something that will happen on the mainland and will be felt there, but I believe the islands offer a valuable opportunity to the Government and ESB Networks to trial all these technologies and solutions and be able then to scale them up.

The islands are a literal island grid. They are an isolated part of the national grid that operates very much in the same way as the rest of the country but there does not currently seem to be an openness or willingness to trial any new technologies or systems on the islands. We are involved in many European research projects through Horizon Europe and INTERREG with universities and technological experts throughout Europe. We have had projects looking at the areas of demand response and smart solutions in homes, such as for people to optimise the usage of the PV on their roofs and domestic buildings and by developing apps in order to notify the homeowner when surplus electricity is being produced in order that he or she can make the most of it and get the benefit of it. That was before there was a feed-in tariff, so it was even more important for homes not to be exporting electricity onto the national grid and not receiving any payment for it. The projects ran well and were very successful and interesting. We have a valuable opportunity on the islands to trial ways of balancing the grid. It is this whole thing of flattening the curve that we were listening to long before the pandemic and which involves solving the issues relating to intermittency and demand and trying to balance it all out. The islands present a valuable opportunity to the Government and ESB Networks to trial systems that can be put in place to tackle that. It is an issue that will be felt nationwide as we move to more renewables. The islands are not unique in that sense but we are special in that we offer the opportunity to iron out all the kinks before it is scaled up on a national level.

Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party)
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Has Ms Ní Shearcaigh looked at possible battery storage solutions? Has she looked at whether vehicle to grid might be a possible solution, particularly if there is a move to an EV solution on the islands?

Ms Avril N? Shearcaigh:

As a small co-operative with limited technical expertise, we have looked at it. We hope to develop or join research projects to look into it in more depth on the islands as time goes on.

To be honest, we have not been able to investigate it in any real depth. One of the issues with battery storage is, again, the grid connection. If we were to add a battery to the grid on the islands, even if not generating electricity, ESB Networks considers battery storage additional generation for the purpose of offering a grid connection. We have run into issues with the 650 kW maximum being imposed on us because we would obviously have to scale down our turbine project if we were to add additional storage. We have looked at putting it alongside our turbine so that we could at least guarantee an export of 650 kW at all times but, realistically, we would need something more than that if we were to decarbonise the islands completely.

We have also looked at vehicle-to-grid technology. The number of electric vehicles, EVs, on the Aran Islands is quite high in comparison with the rest of the country. We have roughly 30 EVs across the islands. They are ideal on the islands and work very well. There is definitely space to look at vehicle-to-grid technology but we need support and buy-in. We do not own the grid so we cannot trial these things without interest from other stakeholders like the CRU or ESB Networks. Their involvement is critical if we are to look at these things in any real detail.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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Gabhaim buíochas leis an bhfinné. Tá sé thar cionn cloisteáil faoin obair atá ar bun ag an Aran Islands Energy Co-op. Ag leanacht ón gceist a chuir mo chomhghleacaí, an raibh aon phlé ag an co-op le Roinn na Gaeltachta faoin bhféidearthacht a bheadh ann ceangal leictreach as an nua a chur isteach go dtí an t-oileán a bheadh íoctha go hiomlán ag rannóg na n-oileán agus a cheanglódh an fostáisiún ar an mórthír leis an oileán go díreach le go bhféadfadh an co-op easpórtáil agus iompórtáil tuilleadh, de réir mar a bheadh gá? Níl an ESB ag dul é a dhéanamh ach d'fhéadfadh Roinn na Gaeltachta nó roinn na n-oileán é a dhéanamh. Rinne siad é cheana. An mb'fhiú staidéar a dhéanamh ar cháblaí nua, idir snáithín optaice, leictreachas agus fiú b'fhéidir uisce, a thabhairt isteach go dtí na hoileáin ag an am céanna mar is é an dreideáil an rud a chosnaíonn an t-airgead nuair atá cáblaí á gcur síos? An gceapann Avril Ní Shearcaigh go mba cheart staidéar a thosú air sin agus é sin tionscnaithe ag an Rialtas féin, mar gur jab mór a bheadh i gceist?

Ó thaobh na ndeontas atá ar fáil le haghaidh insliú a dhéanamh ar thithe, an ceart go mbeadh deontas níos airde ar fáil ar na hoileáin de bharr na gcostas breise a bhaineann le hinsliú a dhéanamh ar thithe ar na hoileáin? An bhfuil iarratas déanta ag an co-op ar a leithéid agus cén freagra atá faighte aige? Ar cheart don choiste seo a bheith ag achainí go mbeadh deontas i bhfad níos airde ann, mar a bhí ann cheana, do na hoileáin le haghaidh obair in-athnuaite nó obair cothabhála a dhéanamh?

Maidir leis na tairiscintí a bheadh á lorg do na báid amach anseo, an ceart don Roinn a rá faoi cheann deich mbliana go mbeidh ceist úsáid fuinnimh in-athnuaite sa bhád go hard ar an liosta tosaíochta le haghaidh aon chonradh nua báid le seans a thabhairt do lucht na mbád athrú ón gcóras atá acu go córas in-athnuaite ó thaobh fuinneamh ar na báid atá ag teacht isteach go dtí na hoileáin?

Ms Avril N? Shearcaigh:

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Teachta as ucht na gceisteanna sin. Bhain an chéad cheist a d'ardaigh sé le cáblaí nua. Chuir muid ceist ar an Roinn ach ní bhfuair muid freagra ar bith. Labhair mé leis an innealtóir áitiúil de chuid an ESB i gContae na Gaillimhe mar gheall ar na cáblaí. Ónár gcuid comhghleacaithe san Eoraip, tuigeann muid go mbíonn fad de thart ar 30 bliain ar na cáblaí seo go hiondúil. Tá an cábla atá againn thart ar 30 bliain d'aois so d'ardaigh mé ceist leis an ESB maidir leis sin. Is é an freagra a fuair mé ná gur rinneadh tástálacha ar an gcábla thart ar 2016 nuair a bhris an cábla agus nach raibh sé ach thart ar leathbhealach tríd a shaol ag an uair sin. Ó thaobh an ESB, ceapann sé go bhfuil an cábla atá ann faoi láthair sách maith ar feadh 30 bliain eile. Ní thógann sé sin san áireamh nach féidir ach 3 MW a chur ar an gcábla sin. Ní thógann sé sin san áireamh an méid leictreachais atá ag teastáil agus atá in úsáid ar na hoileáin, a bheidh ag ardú de réir a chéile nuair a bheidh muid ag athrú ó bhreoslaí iontaise go dtí fuinneamh in-athnuaite le heat pumps, carranna leictreacha agus rudaí mar sin. Níl sé sin tógtha san áireamh ar chor ar bith. Thaitneodh linn céard is féidir a dhéanamh a phlé leis an Roinn. Sílim féin gur cheart é a roinnt idir cúpla Roinn. Titeann na hoileáin faoi Ranna éagsúla agus sílim go mbeadh deiseanna iontacha ansin le cáblaí nua a chur síos. Aontaím go hiomlán leis an Teachta i dtaobh an snáithín fibre le haghaidh an broadband. Táimid réasúnta maith ar na hoileáin ach, fad is a bheas rudaí ag dul chun cinn ar an mórthír, titfimid taobh thír mura bhfuil an ceangal sin ann. Tá sé sin fíorthábhachtach. Tá a fhios agam freisin go bhfuil ganntanas uisce ar na hoileáin, go háirithe i rith an tsamhraidh. Má tá bealach ina bhfuilimid in ann é seo a réiteach ag an am céanna, is fiú an deis sin a fhiosrú.

Maidir leis na deontais ar na hoileáin, faoi láthair, tá 50% níos mó de dheontas ar fáil do mhuintir na n-oileán ar roinnt de na hoibreacha atá ceadaithe ag an SEAI. Ní chlúdaítear an obair ar fad. Ní chlúdaítear leithéidí PV nó solar thermal. Clúdaítear cuid de na rudaí is costasaí, mar shampla, heat pumps agus insliú taobh amuigh den teach, an external insulation a bhíonn i bhfad níos daoire ná cavity insulation, mar shampla. Clúdaítear cuid de na rudaí. Ní chlúdaítear an one-stop shop atá ag an SEAI. Má tá teaghlach ar na hoileáin ag iarraidh deep retrofit a dhéanamh ar a theach, níl tada breise le fáil acu má úsáideann siad an one-stop shop nó an deep retrofit grant atá ag an SEAI. Tá na deontais aonaracha ann. Tá an 50% breise sin ar fáil ar chuid de na rudaí atá ceadaithe ansin ach níl sé ar fáil ar chuile cheann acu. Teastaíonn i bhfad níos mó tacaíochta ó mhuintir na n-oileán. Teastaíonn uainn méid na ndeontas a ardú ach teastaíonn i bhfad níos mó tacaíochta ó leithéidí SEAI agus mar sin de uainn freisin.

Teastaíonn tacaíocht chun na conraitheoirí a thabhairt amach go dtí na hoileáin. Tá an t-uafás ar siúl ar an mórthír faoi láthair. Tá ganntanas oibrithe ar an mórthír cheana féin. Tá a fhios againn é sin. Tá sé fíordeacair ar fiú an slua a bhfuil heat pumps acu faoi láthair iad sin a fháil serviced. Má tá cothabháil ná rud ar bith mar sin le déanamh ar na rudaí atá againn cheana, tá sé sin fíordeacair a fháil. Feiceann daoine eile é sin agus b'fhéidir nach mbeidh siad ag iarraidh heat pump a fháil mura bhfuil siad in ann an chothabháil a fháil déanta air ina dhiaidh. Caithfimid an fhadhb sin a réiteach. Mar is eol dúinn ar fad, tá costais i bhfad níos mó i gceist le hobair ar bith a dhéanamh ar na hoileáin. Cé go bhfuil roinnt cúnaimh tagtha ón SEAI i dtaobh roinnt de na deontais, ní ghabhann sé sách fada. Caithfimid a bheith in ann breathnú ar an bpictiúr ar fad, ní hamháin ar chuid de na deontais. Caithfimid breathnú ar an bpictiúr fadtéarmach. Má táimid ag dul na tithe sin ar na hoileáin, mar aon leis na gnólachtaí agus foirgnimh ar fad eile atá ar na hoileáin, a thabhairt suas go dtí an leibhéal ard atá ag teastáil, beidh orainn i bhfad níos mó oibre a dhéanamh taobh amuigh de na deontais freisin.

Ag caint ar na báid atá ag taisteal amach chuig na hoileáin, ghlac muid páirt i dtogra INTERREG le gairid darb ainm hydrogen utilisation in green energy, HUGE.

Rinne muid cás-staidéar mar chuid den togra seo ar na báid farantóireachta atá ag teacht chuig na hoileáin. Fuaireamar an-tacaíocht ón gcomhlacht a bhíonn ag freastal ar na hoileáin. Bhreathnaigh muid ar go leor de na féidearthachtaí a bhaineann le, mar shampla, hydrogen a úsáid sna báid. Ó shin, is cosúil go bhfuil na féidearthachtaí ann len é a úsáid agus go dtógfaidh sé neart ama. Is smaoineamh maith é dá mbeadh an Roinn ag breathnú ar an bpictiúr go fadtéarmach ag moladh do na báid ach ag oibriú leo chomh maith mar níl sé éasca. Níl sé éasca ar na báid nó ar na comhlachtaí iad féin an trealamh seo a cheannacht. Tá báid réasúnta nua againn anseo ar na hoileáin. Ní féidir iad sin uilig a scrapáil. Caithfimid réiteach éigin a fháil ar seo ach is cinnte gur cheart don Roinn a bheith ag breathnú air anois agus go mbeadh a fhios ag na comhlachtaí go bhfuil sé seo ag teacht aníos síos an bóthar ach go mbeadh a fhios acu go n-oibreofar leo chomh maith ag an am céanna.

Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein)
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It is a pleasure to be here today to see this historic moment. It is the first time a committee is meeting outside the Dáil and on the islands. As someone from Dublin, as I said earlier, the only islands we have are traffic islands so it is a deep learning experience. We were on Bere Island last year and took away so many positives from that experience.

My role within Sinn Féin is as a community development spokesperson and what I see on the islands is an incredible amount of community-led and community-supported development. It is a real eyeopener to see how so much comes from the islands. People provide so much support for each other and look at new and innovative ways of how they can sustain themselves on the islands and look at housing, biodiversity, tourism and its impact on the island as well. There is that sort of juggle between how to get more people onto the islands to live and to visit and at the same time protecting the islands. That is a really incredible struggle and I see that as somebody coming from the outside.

The question I ask is around the challenges the islands have as a community and looking at community-led projects, how the islanders ensure they get their voices heard. Due to being so remote and away from the mainland, Dublin and places where there is power, how do they ensure they get their voices heard, whether it be on biodiversity, tourism, education, health or housing? I am very interested in that part.

Ms Avril N? Shearcaigh:

There is no getting away from it. It is exhausting trying to make ourselves heard all of the time. We on the islands have to shout a lot louder. We always feel when we make it onto local radio or news that we are always giving out, looking for more, asking for more support, help or money. I do not think they are but I would hate to think the islands would be seen as just a money pit. We actually have something of value to offer and the Deputy highlighted it when he spoke about looking at islands and how to make them sustainable. We can show really good examples of this, be it how to tackle climate change or the effects or tourism. It is always felt at a much more smaller scale but it works in the same way as it would in any area of the country. It is probably just felt a little bit earlier on islands and so we have something really valuable to offer in that sense.

Connectivity on the islands is very important. I have worked from home since before the pandemic and before it was fashionable to do so. A really good Internet connection is vital in terms of being able to participate in a lot of meetings. I am very lucky to be able to join in today from Inishmore on the Aran Islands while the other contributors are on Arranmore. Without being able to participate virtually in some meetings, it would make it impossible to stay informed, on top of what is happening and what discussions are being had around different things that relate to and are important to the islands. As we are dependent on a ferry that leaves at such and such a time, it often means a lot of travelling and overnight stays. As islanders, we are used to that. We put in the extra effort, stay overnight, and travel but it is great to be able to have that connectivity as well.

Making sure we participate in public consultations is also important. We are very active on that side of things to make sure people are aware that we exist and that we are here. We have to make sure we are fighting all the time to have an island perspective included in all of the policies. It is fantastic that we finally have an interdepartmental policy for islands. It is a great start and is something that we can build on. It means there should now be cohesive thinking between Departments on how they tackle island issues and that Departments will be working together. The islands fall under multiple Departments and it is important recognise that. We need to be able to make sure all of those Departments are working together but in consultation with the island communities because nobody from the outside is going to understand the unique issues and challenges we face. It is extremely important that islanders and communities are consulted and that this is an important part of developing any new policies being made in relation to islands.

Paddy Burke (Fine Gael)
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Like my other colleagues, I am delighted to be here on this historic occasion at the first broadcast from the islands.

Ms Ní Shearcaigh is the manager of the Aran Islands Energy Co-operative. That is obviously a new company because this form of energy is relatively new in recent years. Does the co-operative carry out the retrofitting and insulation of heat pumps or whatever to the houses on the islands? If it does, has it carried out any surveys on small domestic wind turbines? From an Irish point of view, when we have wind in abundance, it is incredible that there are no small domestic wind turbines, or at least nobody seems to be championing these type of turbines, while there are many people championing retrofitting and solar panels. I have solar panels. I have 6.5 kW solar panels on my house, and I can tell the committee that a bad day is a bad day from an energy point of view. Whether it is the middle of summer or the middle of winter, it is non-existent on those days. We should be going down the route of small wind turbines as a nation. As an energy company, has the Aran Islands Energy Co-Operative done any research into small wind turbines? If we look at the likes of Sweden and Switzerland, solar panels are almost non-existent in those countries because they have nearly six months of darkness and they have seen that they are not of much of a benefit to them. Has the co-operative done any work on that?

Ms Avril N? Shearcaigh:

I hate to disappoint the Senator but the Aran Islands Energy Co-operative is actually in its 11th year, or heading towards its 12th year now. We were established in 2012. We were originally a group of islanders who sat on various committees under the local development co-ops but who recognised that energy was something much wider that deserved an organisation of its own to focus on it as its primary concern. Our shareholders are only residents and businesses on the three Aran Islands. Membership in our co-operative is €100 for lifetime membership. We have been looking at different projects since 2012.

We would have originally been responsible for co-ordinating the retrofit of homes on the islands. We took part in a pilot scheme of the SEAI in 2012 and 2013, which was a pilot of its better energy communities programme, which it later rolled out nationwide. We were the co-ordinators of that and we project-managed it at the time. That model was successful for us for a couple of years but it also carried a huge amount of risk for a non-profit organisation with no income. We had a potential liability at one stage of over €1 million because we had the contract with the SEAI and we were dependent on the SEAI paying out the grant. If, for any reason, it did not pay out a portion of the grant, we were left liable to pay the contractor. Similarly, we had the contract with the homeowners and it left us wide open in terms of insurance and finances. It was far too difficult for us to co-ordinate and project-manage that as such a small organisation without the technical skill sets, as we are not all engineers on the board or anything. We have since moved away from that model. We recognised that we needed the people with the right skill sets to lead these projects.

For a number of years we then successfully ran the retrofitting programmes with a contractor leading the application. We did a lot of the background work and supported the contractor in making the application, collecting the information from all of the households and working closely with both parties, and then they made the application directly to the SEAI. That worked well but you are at the mercy of just one contractor and then you start running into issues of competition. Eventually the contractor was no longer interested in working on the islands because it presented a lot more complications in logistics, accommodation, travel to and from the islands and so on. It chose not to submit an application for the island and then we were left with nothing and we were looking for contractors that were willing to take on that role again, which was not easy. We found it much easier in 2012, 2013 and 2014 to get contractors out to the islands because it was post recession and there was not as much work happening on the mainland. Now that there is more of a shortage of construction workers on the mainland it is getting harder and harder all of the time to get those contractors onto the island. We have looked at different ways to mitigate this. We have taken part in a EU LIFE project called local energy agencies in peripheral regions, LEAP, which is just at the beginning and in its early days. Through that project we have established three separate energy agencies: one in Donegal; one in Sligo and Leitrim; and one for the Conamara Gaeltacht and the islands. The staff in that agency have just been appointed so they are just in the very early days of that. We are hoping that will be a solution. These are people with the skills and expertise to manage these projects and we hope we will be able to bundle projects on the islands in with projects on the mainland, and hopefully make it more enticing for contractors. That is our way of trying to tackle that issue.

Second, the Senator asked about the small turbines on homes. I agree that there is a huge opportunity for them. Generally, when we do not have good sunshine in the winter months and in the leaner months, the turbines will work well. There is room for both PV and smaller domestic turbines on homes. We have looked at this and I have seen an example of it in Ireland but it is not on a house that is connected to the national grid; it is a totally off-grid home that uses PV and a small domestic wind turbine to power the home, along with battery storage. It is an exciting thing to see working. My understanding is that it is not possible at the moment to install it in your home if you are connected to the grid. You need to have a specific agreement in place with ESB Networks before you install anything like that onto its system. There needs to be more work done on that side of it in order for people to be able to install such technologies. They are not new or experimental technologies; they work well all over the world. From that point of view there is little to investigate because we know that turbines work well and we know that wind is a resource that we have in abundance on the islands and along the coast. The work needs to be done on the other end of it to make it easier for people to install those technologies. There are distributors of small domestic turbines in the country already so we are not that far off, if the will is there to make it happen. I agree that it is something we should definitely be looking at.

Paddy Burke (Fine Gael)
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Ms Ní Shearcaigh has said there is no willingness to experiment with new technologies and there is a blockage in some place. Where is the blockage? Is it with the CRU, the ESB, the Government or the Department? Where could the committee help to put some pressure on where the blockages might be?

Ms Avril N? Shearcaigh:

It is probably a combination of things. There seems to be a difficulty. The issue is we only have one distribution system operator, DSO, in the country so that is an issue when we ask it to trial new solutions on the islands, for example, in terms of our larger scale projects and in looking at demand-responsive flexibility. ESB Networks is doing great things in research and on the wider network but maybe it is that the islands are so small that it does not seem to be interested in them. We have a valuable thing to offer it in order to test these things at a small scale before they are scaled up. That initiative needs to come from the top down. Even at a local authority level it is very difficult sometimes to make changes. That needs to come from a very high level and the will must be there to bring more of these technologies into people's homes and to make it happen so that it moves further down the chain in terms of making it easier to get the applications and find installers. If you look at the SEAI's website there is no mention of domestic wind turbines on its pages. The only option for generating electricity in the home that is on the SEAI's website is PV; there is no other option there. That needs to come from a very high level. We must not keep it very narrow and only focus on certain technologies; we need to open it up a little bit more. These are not new technologies, it is not experimental and there is not a huge risk associated with them. We know exactly how these things work so it should not take an awful lot to open it up and inform more people about what is available.

Róisín Garvey (Green Party)
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Dia dhaoibh. Ba bhreá liom a bheith ansin ar Árainn Mhór. Bhí mé ag súil go mór le dul ann ach tá orm a bheith i Loch Garman amárach go luath ar maidin. Caithfidh mé dul ann tráthnóna inniu so ní raibh mé in ann a bheith in dá áit ag an am céanna ach ba bhreá liom bheith ar Árainn Mhór i nDún na nGall. Chaith mé cuid mhaith de mo samhradh ar Inis Oírr, atá i bhfad níos cóngaire dom, thall ar na hOileáin Árainn, agus fuair mé an-oideachas ó thaobh na ndúshlán atá ar an hoileáin. Is mise an t-urlabhraí forbartha tuaithe ar son an Chomhaontais Glais. Tá a lán de na dúshláin céanna againn. Tá mise i mo chónaí 5 míle ó siopa agus níl bus nó aon rud ar fáil. Tá a lán dúshlán similar ann ach tá sé níos deacra ag na hoileánaigh ná mar atá sé againn so níl mé ag gearán chomh mór is a bhí mé cheana féin mar níl mé i mo chónaí go hiomlán ar oileán. Tuigim cás na n-oileánaí; sin atá á rá agam.

Nuair a bhí mé ar Inis Oírr thug mé a lán rudaí faoi deara. Bhí mé ag fanacht leis an mbean is sine ar an oileán. Bhí sé mar onóir mhór dom a bheith i tí Maggie Willie. An-oideachas a fuair mé uaithí ó thaobh na ndúshlán agus na n-athruithe atá ag teacht ar na hoileáin. Thug mé go leor dúshláin faoi deara ó thaobh fuinnimh, waste, connectivity agus broadband. Bhí aithne agam ar Dara Molloy 20 bliain ó shin agus ar an obair a bhí á dhéanamh aige ó thaobh na hoileáin a bheith níos neamhspleáiche, Inis Mór go háirithe, ó thaobh bia agus ó thaobh fuinnimh, ach tá na hoileáin faoi bhagairt fós ó thaobh turasóireachta nach bhfuil ag cabhrú leis na hoileáin go hiomlán i gceart. Tá siad faoi bhagairt freisin ó thaobh daoine a choimeád ar na hoileáin agus ó thaobh na scoileanna a choimeád oscailte. Níl sé éasca mar tá sé níos deacra gach rud a dhéanamh ar oileán. Tá sé deacair go leor duine a fháil chun aon rud a dheisiú, a thógáil nó a sholáthar agus ní bheidh sé éasca riamh; is cuma cad a dhéanfaimid. Sin an dúshlán atá ag muintir na hoileáin agus caithfidh mé a bheith macánta faoi sin.

Tá sé an-tábhachtach go bhfuil an cruinniú seo ag tarlú ar an gcéad dul síos. Mar full disclosure, thosaigh mo dheartháir non-profit, Clare Community Energy Agency agus tá sé ag obair faoi láthair le muintir Inis Mór le níos mó a dhéanamh ó thaobh fuinneamh photovoltaic. Tá Senator Burke i gcónaí i gceart ach ó thaobh solar panels a bheith useless nuair nach bhfuil solas ann ach sé mhí sa bhliain, tá sé mícheart mar caithfidh gach rud a bheith agat. Mar a dúirt Avril, caithfidh gach rud a bheith déanta. Ó thaobh wind turbines, tá cúrsa seachtaine in Albain ina bhfaigheann daoine amach conas domestic wind chargers a dhéanamh iad féin agus tá siad róbheag le pleanáil a bheith acu nó aon rud. Rinne fear céile mo dheirfiúr é agus chuir sé suas é agus bhí solar, wind agus hydro acu agus bhí siad ag cur isteach sa grid é. B’fhéidir go bhféadfaí níos mó taighde a dhéanamh faoi sin. Tháinig sé abhaile tar éis seachtaine agus rinne sé a wind charger féin. Bhí sé sin an-suimiúil mar the more independent people can be and the more upskilled they can be, the less they have to rely on people coming into the oileán to fix things. If you build a domestic wind charger yourself, the chances are you will probably know how to fix it as well. There is that aspect as well. There should be upskilling, even for installing photovoltaic on roofs if there are tradesmen on the island who are carpenters or roofers. I would love to be involved in that. I am the spokesperson for enterprise, trade and employment so I am working with apprenticeships and upskilling existing tradespeople, getting workshops on the island to show them how to do that stuff themselves. If islanders keep getting other people onto the island to do things, when anything goes wrong they will have to get them back again to fix it. I would love to see upskilling of existing islanders so they can do the work of putting the photovoltaic panels up or knowing how to wire. I am sure there are electricians on some of the islands. Maybe it is islanders from other islands we should be upskilling. We cannot have every trade on every island but it would be interesting to see the upskilling of existing tradesman from the islands and let them be the ones who get the gigs to go to islands and do the work if you do not have them on your own island. That is something I would love to work with the witnesses on in the future. I have been meeting the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Deputy Harris, and the Minister of State, Deputy Niall Collins, about this upskilling. With lots of islanders there would be people with maybe 30 years’ experience of carpentry or roofing or bricklaying but maybe they never did the courses. We need to get them recognised for prior learning skills so they can take on apprentices and they can be the ones who get the grants to do the work. Sin an méid atá le rá agam faoi láthair ach tá mé an-bhrónach nach bhfuil mé in Árainn Mhór inniu. Tá mé thíos i mBaile Átha Cliath, ochón, ochón.

Ms Avril N? Shearcaigh:

Mar a deir an Seanadóir Garvey, tá go leor obair ar bun againn faoi láthair ag cur painéil PV isteach. Bhí Colm Garvey amuigh ar na hoileáin ag déanamh obair linn agus tá na painéil PV atá againn anseo ar na hoileáin ag obair thar barr. Tá chuile dhuine atá siad acu an-sásta leo. Tuigim céard atá an Seanadóir Burke ag rá chomh maith. Ní freagra na ceiste ar fad iad na PV panels i ndáiríre. Beidh rudaí eile ag teastáil ach tá áit acu agus má tá muid ag iarraidh an fuinneamh in-athnuaite a úsáid beidh sé fíorthábhachtach. Mar a dúradh, ní bheidh rudaí riamh éasca ar na hoileáin ach do mhuintir na n-oileán, is aoibhinn linn an áit ina bhfuil muid ag maireachtáil. Tá muid sásta an obair sin a chur isteach. Cuirfimid suas le méid áirid ach just teastaíonn beagáinín tacaíochta le rudaí a dhéanamh níos fearr agus le go gcoinneoidh muid suas leis an gcuid eile den tír.

The EU recognises the importance of islands and of giving specific supports to islands. There is a clean energy for EU islands secretariat which looks at islands all over Europe. We have published a clean energy transition agenda with the secretariat. We were one of six pilot islands chosen to participate in the first round. It has now moved on to the next phase so it is now supporting community groups with their energy projects. We have benefited from technical support from the clean energy for EU islands secretariat in the past. We are hoping we will be able to benefit again in the future as it launches its third phase. Given the fact that the EU sees fit to support islands specifically and create island-specific supports, the Irish Government should be able to do something similar. There should be additional funding and additional supports available to islands to carry out this work that may not be available on the mainland because maybe it is not as needed on the mainland as it is on islands. We see examples of it all over Europe where governments and the EU in general provide additional support and focus on islands. They recognise how important the islands are and the value they hold and then they choose to provide island-specific supports. If we were able to combine the EU supports that are available with national supports that are specific to islands in terms of the energy transition, then we would have the opportunity to really make some changes and, more importantly, to meet our targets.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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There are a couple of questions I want to put to Ms Ní Shearcaigh. She pointed out in her opening statement that the retrofitting of homes has had an impact in terms of improving the living conditions of older people and that it has improved their health and well-being. As we know, the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications commissioned the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine to do an assessment of the deep retrofitting of homes in Ireland and found that people have improved health outcomes and are attending their GP less. They are being prescribed fewer antibiotics, they are being admitted to hospital less and when admitted to hospital they are discharged far quicker. In the work Ms Ní Shearcaigh has done on the islands, has she seen anecdotal evidence of that impact, particularly in relation to older people and chronic conditions? Managing chronic conditions is difficult across this country but it is far more difficult for island communities in terms of getting specialist appointments etc. I ask Ms Ní Shearcaigh to comment on that.

Second, she might give us an idea of the impact of engaging with Horizon researchers. She has been engaging with the research community on the projects she is involved with on the islands. What sort of an impact has there been from being able to engage directly with them? On that issue, Ms Ní Shearcaigh has spoken about the challenges around the community wind project, the limited ability to export electricity onto the mainland grid and the issues and complexities with regard to battery storage. Have any of the research projects looked at using smart storage heaters in homes? This is a technology that has been developed here in Ireland by a number of companies and they are rolling it out in other parts of Europe. Has any engagement been done in relation to that? Having an isolated grid on an island community seems to me to be an ideal test bed for it.

Finally, I will raise something that is an issue for us as members of the committee. It is very clear that there are challenges with getting projects off the ground in terms of the flexibility and adaptability being provided through the regulatory environment. There is an opportunity for us as a committee to engage with the Commission for the Regulation of Utilities to see if it would take a more flexible approach in order to facilitate pilots in relation to the island communities, which could then be upscaled and replicated across the country as a whole.

Ms Avril N? Shearcaigh:

Regarding anecdotal evidence from retrofitting homes and the outcomes there, I think it comes down very simply to making homes warmer and insulating them. A lot of the time, not just on islands but in rural communities, those who are in fuel poverty are living in older stone-built homes. They are very difficult to insulate and they are very difficult to heat.

As the cost of energy rises and carbon taxes are coming in, they become more and more expensive to heat, because the heat is escaping so quickly from the homes. Much of the time, when we look at retrofitting homes and when we talk about insulating or installing heat pumps, even the simple thing of not having to lug coal in and out to put it on solid fuel fire makes life easier straight away for somebody who is older, if they do not have to worry about going in and out during the winter, lugging in buckets of coal. It is not easy to retrofit many of these stone-built homes and older houses, so there is a huge challenge, not just on islands or in rural communities but nationwide. Any of the older of people I have met who have had work done on their homes and who have had them retrofitted are generally very happy. Their homes are more comfortable as a result, which is a fantastic thing.

There is a huge learning curve as well because these technologies work very differently from what people may be used to. This is not just the case for older people but for everybody. There is therefore a big role for contractors who are installing things into people's homes that they ensure people understand how they work and how they run. You cannot turn a heat pump on and off like you did your oil boiler. It does not work that way; you are supposed to leave it on constantly and it does its own thing. People who get this technology for the first time may not understand how exactly to run it most efficiently. That is very important as well, because you do not want people having this technology installed and then having really high energy bills as a result and not understanding why, because they are not using the technology properly. That is also really important.

In terms of the engagement with the Horizon Europe researchers, we have found that to be transformative for our co-operative, for a start. We do not receive any kind of core funding from the Government or any national agency. All our funding for all our work comes through our engagement with the Horizon Europe research project. They create a lot of work on their own as well, but they are aligned with our aims, objectives and what we are trying to achieve. Unfortunately, we have not engaged in a project that looks at smart storage heaters. It is something we are trying to do, but we have to work with other agencies and universities to submit these applications. We are not really in a position to submit them ourselves or to lead them ourselves. We are always trying to look for projects that are aligned with our own aims and objectives. We are looking at different technologies that could be installed and trialled or piloted on the islands.

We have looked at other smart solutions. As I mentioned earlier, there was a demand response project. We have not looked, however, at the smart storage heaters in terms of Horizon Europe research. We are very lucky that we engage with many of these projects. We learn an awful lot. We are not experts. I am not an engineer. We do not have backgrounds in that area. Being able to work with them and learn from them is massive. It is fantastic that there is a role for non-profit groups and community groups in Horizon Europe research as well as for groups from universities and people from the commercial sector. We have learned a tremendous amount from all the different partners we have had across all the different research projects in which we have been involved to date.

When it comes to engaging with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU, and using the islands as an area in which to replicate smart solutions, that will be hugely important. We speak about our aims to be lighthouse communities or lighthouse islands for other islands and other communities. There is a huge opportunity there. That is something the CRU should be looking at in terms of giving us a little bit more flexibility and working with us. We probably do not understand all the issues that are involved, but it would be great to be able to work with it, to learn, to try to make suggestions, and then to see exactly what can be done and to be a little bit more flexible on it. This is something the CRU is going to have to look at sooner rather than later. The intermittency of renewables across the country as we move to renewables and as we eliminate fossil fuels is going to cause huge issues. It will be a significant complication and a lot of work for the CRU and all the other stakeholders involved. Therefore, there is a real opportunity for the commission here if it is willing to trial these technologies on our islands and scale it up, because we operate the grid here. It is an isolated part of the national grid and it operates in exactly the same way. We actually have something to offer, as opposed to us just looking for something all the time. We do actually have something to offer in return that way.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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You have an awful lot to offer and I thank Ms Ní Shearchaigh for her presentation to the committee this morning. It is a matter we will be taking up again.

We now move to the second topic on our agenda, which is housing and sustaining communities on our offshore islands. I welcome to the meeting today one of the authors of the new report on this topic, Dr. Conor Cashman, from University College Cork's school of applied social science. The report was commissioned by Comhar na nÓileán. We are joined this morning by Máire Uí Mhaoláin, CEO of Comhar na nOileán, and Ms Nóirín Uí Mhaoldomhnaigh, bainisteoir, Comharchumann Oileán Árainn Mhór, and member of Comhdháil Oileáin na hÉireann. They are all very welcome here this morning. I now invite Dr. Cashman to make his opening statement.

Dr. Conor Cashman:

It is an honour to be here today to speak to the committee about sustaining housing and communities on Ireland’s offshore islands. As the Cathaoirleach mentioned, I am joined by Máire Uí Mhaoláin and Nóirín Uí Mhaoldomhnaigh.

I will give a very brief opening statement to set out the research that was carried out by me and Dr. Siobhán O’Sullivan in the school of applied social studies in UCC. The research, as has been mentioned, focused on housing needs on Ireland’s offshore islands. It is important to state from the outset and to acknowledge the timeliness of this research in terms of the context in which it took place. Obviously, there is an urgent need to address identified housing needs on the islands. There is also an opportunity presented by the recent publication of the Government’s living islands national policy and the related action plan.

It is also important to stress from the outset that the research I and my colleague, Dr. Siobhán O’Sullivan, carried out, highlights that there is a strong wish by full-time residents and communities to remain living and thriving on the islands. There is also a clear cohort of people who want to return to or to move to the islands for the first time. In this regard, the research and the survey underscore how housing is crucial for both maintaining and expanding communities on Ireland’s offshore islands. While the housing situation on the islands is situated within the context of a wider housing crisis in Ireland generally, the needs, preferences and experiences set out in the upcoming report highlight that a failure to address housing needs on the islands represents an existential threat to the continuity of sustainable communities on those islands.

We can talk a bit more about the report in a few moments if members want to ask specific questions, but I will highlight some key points. A total of 611 people participated in the survey, which was done online, and 60% of all survey respondents were full-time residents on the Irish offshore islands. Second homeowners accounted for 21% of total responses received, while 13% of respondents had previously lived on the islands. Many of those indicated a wish to return to the islands. Then, 6% of the responses were from people who needed to or wished to move to the islands full-time. Perhaps reflecting the population size of the offshore islands, the Galway islands region accounted for 44% of the responses received, followed by Cork at 31%, Donegal at 14%, and Mayo at 11%.

I am happy to speak, as will Ms Uí Mhaoláin and Ms Uí Mhaoldomhnaigh, about specific details, but I will highlight some key issues that have arisen from the survey and the draft recommendations we are putting forward at the moment. First, a key issue is that there is a lack of affordable and available housing. This is a significant issue that impacts respondents to the survey who wish to remain on or move to the islands. This is a key issue in terms of the cost and affordability of homes as well as their availability. There is also an issue around the lack of long-term, available rental accommodation. Renters are facing a particularly precarious experience and living situation on Ireland’s offshore islands, as is demonstrated in the report.

Another key point, and this is something we may flesh out more during the questions, is that the most popular or most preferred property and tenure type that survey respondents identified is in the form of a house that is owned outright or owned with a mortgage. There is a key point to be made here about the nature of affordability on Ireland’s offshore islands which needs to be discussed and tackled.

As I mentioned a second ago, the precarity of renters as well as the lack of long-term sustainable renting options are particularly obvious in the research I and Dr. O’Sullivan carried out. A total of 79% of renters in the survey stated they were likely or very likely to need to move in the next five years, and the majority of these people want to remain on the offshore islands. They want to remain living in their homes on the islands, but there is a significant concern expressed by renters about the security of tenure and about having to vacate their home due to its sale, due to the landlord requesting them to move out, or due to having to move out during the holiday season.

Another point to note is that there is a latent housing demand in addition to people who want to remain living here. There is also an interesting insight from the survey on people who previously lived on the islands who want to move back and people who want to move to the islands for the first time. It is interesting that language and culture are identified as reasons that people who did not live there previously are drawn to the islands. This is an interesting qualitative insight into the reasons that people set out.

Another key issue is the very strong support for schemes and initiatives that enable sustainable communities. These include in particular community-owned or island-run housing schemes that would address specific island issues, such as the conversion of derelict properties. It is a terrible phrase to use for housing but derelict properties are viewed as an untapped asset that could be used, particularly to accommodate people who have a long-term housing need on the island or, perhaps, young people who want to start families on the islands. Making planning permission more achievable and accessible is also highlighted by respondents. There is also support for rural resettlement funds and gateway housing.

The report contains a number of recommendations, which will be published shortly. When we were discussing recommendations with the group we wanted to ensure that the voices of survey respondents are heard and to grasp the opportunity provided by the islands policy that was published recently. A number of key recommendations emerged. Specific island metrics should be gathered so that we know what are the actual needs in each individual island region. Different island regions have different specific needs when it comes to housing. These should be monitored and identified through ongoing engagement with island communities and this should be maintained.

There is strong support for the creation of a community-led housing association or an approved housing body. This could be managed by communities on the islands. It could also be provided with the remit to provide affordable, gateway or sheltered housing options for full-time residents, new residents and essential workers. This might fit in with some of Ms Ní Shearcaigh's earlier comments. This is discussed in some detail in the action plan but the question is how to operate it. I will be happy to discuss this.

There is an important role to be played for island representative groups, such as Comhar na nOileán or Comhdháil Oileáin na hÉireann, to give input on the formation of planning guidelines. This is crucial in terms of people having an opportunity to set out their experiences and the issues they encountered with planning permission on the islands.

There is a need to have input on the implementation of policy on vacant homes, particularly with regard to identifying properties and the nature of such schemes that might be available to residents. Many people spoke about having difficulties in dealing with bureaucracy with regard to ownership and title of properties. As every good researcher would say, we need to have more research and ongoing research to make sure there is continuous engagement with communities on this point.

In the survey we included an open text box to allow people write what they wanted. People experience survey fatigue if they are asked many questions frequently. One person expressed hope that something comes of this survey. The person described themselves as a young adult and stated there is no housing available on the island that is their home. This person is speaking about housing, which as well as being an asset is also a person's home and this needs to be addressed. I thank the committee.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the witnesses. It is well recognised by the islanders that housing is a major issue. The witnesses have given an even better insight into it. My experience is that when we look at islanders who can establish a housing need and who apply for planning permission on their own sites or on an acquired site, the problems seem to be wastewater, archaeology and ecology. These have to be taken one by one. Wastewater disposal on the Aran Islands is a major issue but it needs an agreed technical solution to overcome it.

The issue of housing need on the islands goes to planning and four different local authorities approach it in four different ways. These are the local authorities in Donegal, Mayo, Galway and Cork. We need clear national guidelines. I have been suggesting, and I will be interested to hear the response of the witnesses on this, that anybody who lives full-time on an offshore island - in other words, it is the place of residence where a person might have their boat or where they are living - should be deemed to have a social and economic connection with the island. This is as long as they can prove within reason that they are likely to remain and they have not done it solely for the purpose of getting planning permission to have a holiday home. We need to set this out fairly clearly. I have seen people who have been living on an island for six or seven years still run into trouble and not qualify as having a housing need. This covers the main issue we are coming up against for non-islanders trying to settle on islands permanently. These people might be teachers. They could be anybody on an island with a very good job but they cannot prove a housing need.

I agree with the point on approved housing bodies. It would have to be a different type of approved housing body from that with which we are familiar. It would not just be for affordable and social housing. It would have to include ordinary purchase housing for those who have better jobs and who want to avail of the schemes. All of the islands, including all of the Donegal islands and the three Aran Islands, which population-wise are the vast majority of the islands, but with the exception of Inishbofin in Galway, the Mayo islands and the Cork islands other than Oileán Chléire, come under the remit of Údarás na Gaeltachta. Because of the economic ability of that organisation it should be part of setting up this approved housing body and should be central to it. There is no point in reinventing the wheel. We are better off using the strong agents that we have.

These are practical things that could be done now. I always look for the things that people can get on with and get done that would make a significant difference. The Croí Cónaithe scheme has an extra top-up for the islands. This should become automatic for all schemes such as housing aid for older people, mobility grants, adaption grants, the help-to-buy scheme and any scheme that is introduced in future that gives assistance to people on the mainland. There should automatically be a 30% top-up on the island rate because of the extra cost of transport. People underestimate the transport difficulty. There may be ro-ro facilities on Árainn Mhór and on Bere Island but the other islands have lo-lo. Items brought to the piers on those islands must be loaded on the boat. When it is taken off the boat at the other end it must be unloaded and transported. Two motor vehicles are required, one at each end. It is a lot more expensive. It is not just the freight cost of the boat. Even if that were eliminated in total it would not solve the problem. There is still a lot more handling and handling is money.

From the document and from work I have been doing myself I am interested to hear from the witnesses whether these issues could make a significant start in trying to move forward. We know where we would like to be but we need to get there. On some of the islands if we amended the Act slightly, and that is a job for the coiste Gaeilge, Údarás na Gaeltachta could use the land it owns and other lands it might buy for housing as well as for industrial purposes.

Dr. Conor Cashman:

I thank Deputy Ó Cuív. Gabh mo leithscéal, níl a lán Gaeilge agam. I will make some brief points and Ms Uí Mhaoldomhnaigh and Ms Uí Mhaoláin also wish to speak. We asked people about planning and it is a key issue that people identified as a barrier to potentially remaining on the islands. Looking at the draft figures from the report, a key reason for planning refusal was a site being in a special area of conservation or a national area of protection. One point that must be made on some of the recommendations in the report is that we need to understand the specific reasons in various island regions. Some islands may have this as a big issue and others may not. It is a key point. We recommend there is input and acknowledgement in the national planning guidelines to be able to respond to people's needs with regard to planning permission.

Affordability is a key point and Deputy Ó Cuív is exactly right on how that should be formed. If we look at some of the figures we have managed to get, people say they can afford houses up to approximately €200,000. This does not meet the market level on some of the islands. There needs to be acknowledgement and flexibility. The Cathaoirleach mentioned flexibility in other schemes. Flexibility in approved housing bodies that might be established on the island should acknowledge this, subject to potential regulations and other regulatory authorities of which the approved housing bodies must be aware.

Croí Cónaithe is another point with which Ms Uí Mhaoldomhnaigh might have a couple of problems in terms of using and accessing those services as well. I thank Deputy Ó Cuív for those comments.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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Are there any other comments on Croí Cónaithe?

Ms N?ir?n U? Mhaoldomhnaigh:

First, I welcome all of the members here to Árainn Mhór island. As an islander, it is a real privilege to have them present here today. It was a huge body of work to get this all set up, and the room next door as well. I thank the committee very much for giving us the opportunity.

We welcome the Croí Cónaithe scheme and the extra top-up. We have a significant number of derelict, vacant houses here on the island, but there is a problem that many face, as a lot of them would have to go back a few generations to be able to establish ownership of the title. The cost associated with that would be very prohibitive for a lot of people. It would be very expensive to go back through the generations to get the title of the property in the first place.

Another minor issue is that community groups such as ourselves bought lands and property over the years. Our co-op was established in the 1970s and many years ago it purchased lands for development works. Where there are derelict houses on some of those lands you do not qualify for Croí Cónaithe if the property is not in the name of an individual. A community group cannot avail of it. That is all I have to say about Croí Cónaithe, but it would be very helpful if community groups could apply for it.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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That is a very simple suggestion. It is one the committee could take up with the Minister.

Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein)
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There are a couple of issues I would like to address. One relates to AHBs. We have a lot of experience in my constituency with AHBs. They are buying and building vast numbers of homes. We have seen how it has worked in the area. It is a really good suggestion. I like the idea that it is a community basis coming from the islands themselves because they are the ones who understand and acknowledge what the difficulties and challenges are.

One of the things we need to look at is new technologies when we talk about new homes. We need to look at the traditional house, be it block-built or otherwise. We talked earlier of the difficulty with getting construction workers onto the island and the expense involved. A lot of the new technologies we have looked at involve building off site in factories. They do not need a highly skilled set of construction workers on site and they can be moved and constructed rapidly. I visited one such site recently that is going up in the next few months. It will take three months for a block of six apartments to be built. It is all built off site and it will take three months to install it. That is something that really needs to be looked at.

Another very important issue is cost rental and affordable rental. If we put the cost of renting onto the individual, then it becomes unaffordable. There is no point in doing that. We must make homes affordable for people. We must also look at the public housing aspect of it as well, which is extremely important, so that people who cannot and will never be able to afford to get a mortgage, even on an affordable scheme, are given an opportunity to live on the islands as well.

Have we ever looked at underoccupied houses? In my constituency the council will look at cases where a family in a three- or four-bedroom home have grown up and moved out and the property is underoccupied. There is an opportunity in the planning legislation to look at allowing somebody to build a home that would release a bigger home so that a family could move into it. We need something like that. There are an awful lot of people who would like to move from a big home because of the cost of running a three- or four-bedroom house, as opposed to a one-bedroom house, which would suit their current needs.

In terms of planning, second homes and holiday lets, do we know exactly how many holiday lets there are, on average, as a proportion of the overall number of houses on this island? Again, that has an impact. Reference was made to security of tenure for those who are currently letting. I could be wrong, but my understanding is that there are four conditions that allow a person to get a property back from a renter. I did not know a holiday let was one of those. Could the witnesses elaborate on that?

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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Does Dr. Cashman want to start off and the other witnesses might want to come in then?

Dr. Conor Cashman:

The survey asked about people's experience and list of reasons why their security of tenure is not ideal. We did not ask people if a landlord gave a legally justified reason. This is people's experience. They do not feel they have a long security of tenure for 12 months or X number of years. That was one of the main points but, for clarity, the biggest concerns were similar to the rest of Ireland generally that a landlord was thinking of selling or getting out of the rental market.

There is definitely more work to be done, in particular looking at the CSO figures around vacancy and derelict properties as well as the level of occupancy. That is certainly something that could continue to be a live piece of research.

I came across property lists in the opening statement. There is a key issue about affordability and what that looks like on Ireland's offshore islands. The previous speaker mentioned as well that there must be a political willingness to address what an AHB should do if it has the needs of an island community in mind, in particular when people may not be on a social housing list but they cannot meet the market prices for property on the islands. I am conscious that I am talking an awful lot so I do not want to take up everyone's time.

Ms M?ire U? Mhaol?in:

I thank the committee for inviting us. It is a great opportunity. It is fantastic that the meeting is on one of the Irish islands.

On the point about underoccupied houses, I think there would be a huge opposition to that on the islands. Land and homes belong to the family and the extended family, which is very important. They often go to extended family. An island person would never think of selling their home. It just would not happen but, unfortunately, that is the way it is.

AHBs for islands is a really good idea. We will talk to Údarás na Gaeltachta about it getting involved in that, but there would still be an issue with the non-Gaeltacht islands. It might be something that could be piloted with the údarás and then extended in some way.

The problem with security of tenure and renting is that often there are no contracts in place. The islanders are a bit slow to introduce documents into an arrangement. I think everyone will understand that. That can be a huge issue.

The big issue with planning is the willingness of local authorities to engage. We could do with the assistance of the committee members, as the Legislature of the country, to look at how local authorities engage with local people. Surely there is a time when the environment is extremely important.

Nobody values the environment as much as islanders do. On the Aran Islands, everything we see is man-made. Diversity and the caretaking of the land is what makes them special and, therefore, people are a crucial point in that. We have to take care of our population or, otherwise, there will be a wilderness and that is not good for diversity either.

Ms N?ir?n U? Mhaoldomhnaigh:

With regard to holiday lets being introduced as housing stock, we have a significant number of holiday homes and probably a quarter of the properties on the islands are holiday homes, but they would not be suitable for long-term lets. They are owned by islanders who live and work elsewhere in the country or overseas but who are inclined to use them very much during the year, so they probably would not be suitable as residential properties for people wanting to move to the islands.

Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party)
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We do not have islands in Waterford but we have very similar pressures in our Gaeltacht community, Gaeltacht na nDéise, where there are those kinds of competing demands and many properties being used as second properties or holiday homes. There is a situation where people who want to live and work within their own Gaeltacht community find it extremely difficult to access housing because of the price and they are simply priced out of the market. On the rare occasion that a house comes up for sale, the property tends to be unaffordable to people who are working within the community. It is a very similar situation.

Something that jumped out at me was the issue of community groups not being able to access the Croí Cónaithe grant. A scheme that has worked very well in Waterford city is the repair and lease scheme, which would provide for social housing to enter into the mix. I do not know if that is something the witnesses have explored or investigated and I do not even know if community groups can access that.

I am struck that Dr. Cashman's five key recommendations are fairly close to a number of the recommendations in the action plan for Our Living Islands. He might comment on that.

I very much support Deputy Ó Cuív in the call for the remit of Údarás na Gaeltachta to be expanded to allow for that kind of community-based approved housing body, AHB, model. Údarás has the land, the knowledge and the expertise. However, as Ms Uí Mhaoláin said, it would be important not to forget the non-Gaeltacht islands. Deputy Ó Cuív suggested it would not be beyond the pale of possibility for the remit of Údaras na Gaeltachta to be expanded that slight bit to include non-Gaeltacht islands, although I am not sure if that is doable.

Have the groups investigated the repair and lease scheme. The witnesses might give us a bit of local context. Dr. Cashman presented in general but I know that the pressures on housing on each island are different. How does Inis Oírr compare to Árainn Mhór with regard to the specific housing needs that exist?

Ms N?ir?n U? Mhaoldomhnaigh:

We have not considered or investigated the scheme but it is something we certainly can do. All of the islands are different but when it comes to housing, the issues on all of them are the same. We know that a significant number of people would like to come to live on our island. There was a campaign a number of years back and many people expressed an interest in moving to the island but the problem was the lack of housing for sale or rent. In addition, we know that many people returned to the island during Covid. In order for us to make sure we can sustain our communities, we are going to have to address the issue of lack of housing for non-islanders who want to come to the island and islanders who emigrated and want to come back and build a house, as I did myself. Many people on my island have the same pattern of moving to England or America and returning and building on their own land. What was very good a number of years back was the grant to build a house on the islands but that ended in 2008. That was very beneficial and it would be very beneficial if it could be reinstated.

I am sure Ms Uí Mhaoláin will be able to deal with the issues on Inis Oírr.

Ms M?ire U? Mhaol?in:

On Inis Oírr and the Aran Islands in general, we do not have a huge problem with dereliction, so there will be very little take-up of the Croí Cónaithe grant. On the repair and lease scheme, one of the big issues we came across is that we do not have an awful lot of people on the islands who are on the housing list. They are just not on it; I am not sure if there is anyone on the list on some islands and there may be two on my island. When somebody avails of the repair and lease grant, they then lease the property to the local authority for a long period. The period is too long anyway, which would put off many people, but it has to be available to people who are on the housing list and who are availing of HAP, and we do not have many of those. This is an area where we differ in comparison to mainland areas.

Dr. Conor Cashman:

With regard to the fact the recommendations are very close to the recommendations in the action plan, the survey was carried out towards the end of last year and we were drafting and analysing the data and talking to people about the recommendations or findings from the research. When the action plan and the policy were launched, we felt it was an important opportunity to see what overlaps there were in terms of what the voices of islanders are saying and how this might map with the action plan. A specific point from the survey and the recommendations is that there needs to be a specific island-based action plan and metrics that might sit under the action plan or policy from Government. As has been demonstrated, there is a unique set of challenges around housing on Ireland's offshore islands but there are different experiences in different areas, to which people can speak. For example, dereliction is probably not a huge issue on some of the Galway islands but, from the report, rent precarity seems to be very high in the Galway island regions, more so than in others. What we do in the final published report is that we have an information sheet that sets out the different kinds of experiences that emerged across the four different regions. That is all anonymous information, of course, but it gives a sense of it.

The action plan that Dr. Siobhán O’Sullivan and I have set out focuses on community-engaged responses and people being listened to, so the action plan is just not some nice PDF that sits on the shelf and people will actually enact these things, particularly local groups.

Paddy Burke (Fine Gael)
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I congratulate the witnesses on the great research and surveys they have done on the offshore islands. Deputy Ó Cuív raised a very good point regarding four different counties having four different planning authorities. What is needed is to have an umbrella body to develop some form of policy and it could then be given to the four different local authorities, which would adopt it in their county development plans. It is the members of the local authorities who adopt county development plans. If we want something uniform right across the offshore islands, something like that would have to be stitched into the local authority plans. That would probably be a way of doing it.

I am sure a special case can be made for community groups with regard to Croí Cónaithe, particularly for the offshore islands. If there were problems getting title to properties, the local authorities could play a big role with compulsory purchase orders, CPOs, if there was agreement around that. The local authority could do a CPO and then hand the property back to the community group.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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While I wish you the best of luck in getting the local authorities to act on CPOs, Dr. Cashman might want to comment first.

Dr. Conor Cashman:

From the voice of the people who filled out the survey, there clearly is frustration with planning processes generally, not just with planning permission not being approved but also with the bureaucracy dealing with it. There certainly is a case to be made for more engagement with community residents in order that they have a voice in planning guidelines. How that would work in reality, in particular with local authorities, is another question. I think the rural guidelines are currently being published; I am not sure if they have been published yet. However, that is certainly an issue.

Ms Uí Mhaoláin may have more to say on this but the issues of not being able to get proper answers, relatively quick turnaround times for applications or information on how the applications are progressing are key frustrations. Residents also talk about the huge cost involved.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I support what Ms Uí Mhaoláin has said about underoccupied houses. In my view, there is a total misunderstanding about this in urban Ireland. I live most of the time in an underoccupied house. There is no question or doubt about it. That is except for when the children come home and they bring their children, the grandchildren, home. We are then an over-occupied house, and the whole place is full. That happens in summer, on bank holiday weekends, at Christmas and so on. You find that very few rural houses are empty all year, even when they are underoccupied. When I was growing up, I lived in Dublin, and we never slept over. There was no point. All of our relations were nearby. However, when your family comes home to a rural area, they obviously stay with the parents in a lot of cases. One problem we have continuously in County Galway in particular, I do not know if it is true in counties Donegal, Mayo and Cork, is it is very hard to get a preplanning meeting. More importantly, where they refuse, it is very hard to get a post-planning meeting whereby people can meet the planner to find out what changes would have to be made to get permission the second time. People are spending a lot of money trying to address the issues only to find out they are still getting refused and that is a problem. Finally, the Údarás Act is in the process of being amended at the moment. My view is that a provision could be put in whereby certain functions, at the direction of the Minister, could be carried out by the Údarás on an agency basis specifically on non-Gaeltacht islands. Population wise, the non-Gaeltacht islands are about one quarter of the total island population. When the Gaeltacht and the islands were initially put in one Department, the idea was that for socioeconomic matters islands could be treated exactly the same whether they were Gaeltacht or non-Gaeltacht. We need to have the same power now to get on with the job, and to set up an AHB with the power to buy and sell land.

On Ms Uí Mhaoldomhnaigh's point on title, we put an airstrip on Inishbofin. It had to be subject to a compulsory purchase order as it was commonage. One of the interesting by-products was that people had to get title to get their money. Some of them used all of the money they got for the CPO to get their titles up to date, which was useful for farming and ownership purposes. I think on most of the islands it has happened because of farming grants. Where it has not happened, I think we need to look and quantify it. I would be interested to find out, roughly speaking, how many landholders on the islands do not have clear title to all of their properties, including their land and their buildings.

Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein)
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To clarify, underoccupancy or over-occupancy is entirely voluntary. In our local authority, it is for a person who chooses to downsize. There is nothing compulsory about this. It is not about forcing people out of their homes and into smaller homes. People are choosing to do that. There should be an option somewhere that if people wish to move to a smaller property, then that option should be there for them.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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Ms Uí Mhaoldomhnaigh might wish to come in first on Deputy Ó Cuív's last question in particular, about these properties where there are complexities relating to title. It is definitely an issue I find in my own constituency. If we had an idea of the scale of the problem on any of the islands it might help us to progress it.

Ms N?ir?n U? Mhaoldomhnaigh:

We have not done an analysis of the number of properties but we have a significant amount of derelict properties. We have not analysed the number that do not have title as yet. I will go back to the report and its findings and recommendations. I think it is useful, and will be a great tool for us moving forward together with some of the suggestions made today. It is important that we move on it and get to the next steps and try to move forward to achieve some of the objectives set out in the report.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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Taking on from that, does Dr. Cashman think it would be possible for University College Cork to take one of the islands with a large dereliction rate where there has not been an uptake of the Croí Cónaithe scheme to see how big an issue title is, or what the issues are? If we can crack this nut on our islands, we can also crack this nut in other rural communities. It would be interesting to get a handle on how big this issue is. I have to say, no more than Deputy Ó Cuív when he was Minister, that the current housing Minister is very amenable to adapting and changing to try to increase the uptake for this scheme.

Dr. Conor Cashman:

That would certainly be possible. We have collected information specifically for this survey, on foot of Comhar na nOileán and Comhdháil Oileáin na hÉireann's request. However, it would be feasible to do a further study or explore it further in terms of specific island experiences on that point. That would be feasible. I see no problem operationalising that. I also want to make a point about occupancy and people's experience. One value of this type of survey is that while there are a lot of statistics, there also are a lot of opportunities for people to set out their experience. I want to refer to one quote, and this will be hot off the presses shortly. An older adult living on one of the islands said that if his or her children were not allowed to build on family land when and if they plan on moving back to the island, he or she would have to move to where they are living. It is an existential crisis. It is not just that young people are not moving. Not having that opportunity to move is having a huge impact on older generation's ability to stay on the islands too. That is an inside view.

Ms M?ire U? Mhaol?in:

I agree with everything Dr. Cashman has said, and we hear that a lot. People will move away because other members of the family will not be there. On the Croí Cónaithe question, that is a piece of work we could do quickly and easily in our own organisation working with somebody like Ms Uí Mhaoldomhnaigh. We know the islands and we could do that quickly. I am thankful for the suggestion, as it is something I will bring back to my own board and will suggest. It would be useful to a lot of organisations.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I am surprised to hear that a family member of an islander, in other words somebody who grew up on an island, would not be classified as having a housing need as long as they are coming back to live on the island. I am highly critical of things in Galway at times, but as long as you could establish you were coming back permanently you would be considered to have a housing need if you were from the island. The problem we have is that the islands are not self-sustaining without bringing in teachers and all sorts of people. That is the challenge we seem to be facing. I am very surprised that any local authority would not deem someone as having a social and economic connection if you were returning full-time to the place you grew up. That is normally defined in the rural planning guidelines as is, as qualifying for rural housing. I am a little puzzled as to how that became a problem.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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Would Dr. Cashman like to comment on that?

Dr. Conor Cashman:

I was referring to someone who filled out on an anonymous basis as to their concerns around planning, that if their children cannot get planning on the island, they will not be able to stay. It is a qualitative experience is being set out here rather than a huge list of these people, and it is anonymous anyway. We will be publishing the reasons for planning refusal in the report. As I mentioned earlier, a site being in an SAC is one of the key points but also alleged or purported lack of housing need is one of the points. Perhaps further research could be done to dig into that a bit more. Certainly the perception coming across from the survey from islanders is that planning is difficult to obtain and people being told that they do not have a housing need or whatever is having an impact on people's sense of security on the islands as well.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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One of the issue that arises is when someone has a mainland property and they are moving permanently to the island but want to keep the mainland property as a base, because I know many islanders who have always lived on the island but have a mainland property because they spend a certain number of nights out, particularly the ones that are further offshore, when they want to go for services or children going to college and so on, and that can be an issue. We need to dig a little bit deeper into that. There is also the perception issue, which can be very debilitating. If the word gets out on the street there is no point in trying, that in itself can be debilitating.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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The research that has been presented today is really useful from the point of view of trying to develop policy, not just for the island communities. It is a deep dive into it and we are looking forward to looking further into this research. It also has implications for addressing housing needs on the mainland. It is clear from the hearing we have had this morning that there is an opportunity for an approved housing body to be established through Údarás na Gaeltachta. This committee should engage with the coiste na Gaeilge on that to make a strong recommendation that its remit could be extended to become an approved housing body for all of our island communities. That is something we will take up with our colleagues. If we could have some data on the uptake of the Croí Cónaithe scheme and how big an issue the bottleneck in terms of title is, we as a committee would be willing to bring it up with the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, who I know is quite amenable to trying to address any such bottlenecks.

It is also clear from the evidence this morning that we as a committee should write to each of the relevant local authorities to ask them to engage to a far greater extent with the community representatives on each of the islands to see if we can overcome some of the planning challenges that exist.

I thank the witnesses for the evidence presented, the work that has been done and for commissioning this piece of research. It is a very innovative step for a community organisation to commission a piece of research like this. I thank them for their time today.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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We now move on to the final topic on our agenda, ehealth and living longer on islands. We have with us Dr. Ian McCabe, project manager with the health innovation via engineering lab, HIVE, at the University of Galway. He is also manager of the home health project, the healthy islands project and the virtual hospital project. We have Dr. Noreen Lineen-Curtis, the GP serving Clare Island and Inishbiggle in County Mayo. She is an ehealth advocate and pioneer. We also have Dr Jennifer Doran, research physician at the HIVE lab. She is developing procedures and processes for integrating telemedicine into island communities. I will now ask Dr. Doran to make her opening statement.

Dr. Jennifer Doran:

I thank the committee for having us here today to address how to improve quality and duration of life for those living on Ireland's offshore islands. I am a medical doctor and a research physician in e-health and I also have a background in law, having worked for over five years in the European Commission and Parliament, focusing on the area of regional development. I am joined by my colleagues, Dr. Ian McCabe and Dr. Noreen Curtis. Dr. Curtis will speak about the day-to-day realities and challenges of life as an island GP, while Ian and I will speak about the pilot projects in e-health that the health innovation via engineering, HIVE, laboratory in the University of Galway is pioneering. We are a group of doctors, researchers, thinkers and engineers focused on finding innovative solutions to healthcare problems using technology and engineering. We do this in the hope of keeping the Irish population, particularly the rural population, living longer and better and reducing the need for admission to our hospitals and care homes. We have focused our work on some of the most isolated parts of Ireland, working at the frontier where isolation meets innovation. Where better to start, then, than the islands?

Our work began a year ago on Clare Island with the Home Health project and will soon expand to Inishturk and Inishbofin under the umbrella of the Healthy Islands pilot. With the committee's support, we hope to expand this and grow the suite of healthcare solutions and options on offer to Ireland's island and rural populations. We are also working on a pioneering "virtual ward" project aimed at delaying admission to and facilitating early discharge from hospital so as to keep people in their own homes for longer.

The Covid-19 pandemic showed us what can happen when patients are unable to visit their doctor or hospital for fear of infection. However, similar barriers to healthcare exist year-round for a large portion of the population, who find attendance at their healthcare provider difficult due to distance, disability, lack of transport, responsibility for loved ones, land and livestock, or inclement weather.

In all these situations, a telemedicine solution could provide options for alternative models of care. Nowhere is this more true than in the management of chronic conditions such as hypertension, heart failure, diabetes and other comorbidities, which together represent the biggest burden on the Irish health service. Here, telemonitoring and telemedicine have the potential to revolutionise a patient's experience of care, save time and money for both patient and provider alike and alleviate some of the strain on our already heaving health service.

Modern medicine has meant that people are living longer and, correspondingly, there has been a huge increase in chronic illness. This means new approaches are needed to deliver healthcare efficiently and effectively. This is especially important for those living many miles from their local tertiary care centre, whether distanced by land or sea. Telemedicine allows the secure, remote exchange of medical data between patients and healthcare professionals. It is used to increase patients' access to care and provide effective healthcare services at a distance. The overarching goals of our work are to explore the impact of remotely delivered healthcare on the well-being of isolated rural communities, particularly those on the island; to evaluate its impact on patients' experience of, engagement in and management of their own health and chronic conditions; and to investigate barriers to the adoption of digital health, well-being and monitoring among adult populations in rural communities, particularly those on the islands.

Clare Island, where we began our work a year ago, is home to a community of 160 people. They have carved out a living for themselves on this remote island 5 km off the west coast. Serviced by a single doctor who travels weekly to the island from the mainland, it is home not least to several newborn babies but also to an ageing population attempting to live with and manage a complex tapestry of chronic conditions and comorbidities. For many, a routine hospital appointment can mean days away from home and an arduous journey via boat, bus and car, together with a costly stay on the mainland, until weather permits a return home. That is before we mention slippery cement steps at both island and mainland piers, where you sometimes have to take your life in your hands getting on and off the boat. This is particularly challenging for those with physical disabilities or activity-limiting health conditions. In our work, we are conducting feasibility studies into how the remote delivery of healthcare and health promotion can improve the health of a rural community, and we are examining its impact on people's lives at both individual and community levels with a view to expanding this pilot model to other islands and across rural Ireland.

As my colleague, Dr. McCabe, will explain, through our work on the Healthy Islands project and the Home Health project, together with our partners in the HSE, Cisco and the Western Development Commission, we hope to bridge the gap and level up the access to healthcare for those living in rural and offshore areas of Ireland. I thank the committee.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I thank Dr. Doran. I now invite Dr. McCabe to make his contribution.

Dr. Ian McCabe:

I am going to paraphrase my submission because the members do not need to hear me read it all out. I work in the HIVE laboratory. I am not a medical doctor; rather, I am a scientist, a physicist. I have been working in the school of medicine over the past year with Professor O'Keeffe, who is the principal investigator on this project. He is the consultant endocrinologist in the hospital and also a professor of medical device technology in the University of Galway. Therefore, he bridges the important gap between the HSE and research.

I am a native islander as well. I am from Clare Island and I have been working for the university from that island for the past eight years. I have field-tested much of the technology we are trying to put in place through the health project.

What we are doing is in large part driven by the adoption of broadband in our rural areas. While we have not seen the national broadband plan come out yet, the broadband technologies available have increased dramatically in the past five or six years, and we are able to use them for this type of research. We are doing the likes of virtual consultation, remote monitoring of patients, community-based health activity and nutrition strategies for individuals. We are also doing some more exotic things, such as using robots, which some members might have seen on RTÉ News a few months ago. We are also using drones to deliver medical supplies and trialling artificial intelligence to help with the scheduling of patients' appointments. We are also going to start a trial soon using remote telepresence to determine whether we can combat loneliness in the island population.

The important point that sets this project apart from others, on which I have worked, is that we have a really strong consortium of organisations involved in management, not least the so-called quadruple helix of industry, community, government and academia. The Home Health and Virtual Hospital projects are funded by Cisco and Science Foundation Ireland. We have very strong community engagement, which I will talk more about. With regard to government, we include Mayo County Council and individuals from the Department of Rural and Community Development in our monthly meetings. Where academia is concerned, there is a collaboration between the University of Galway and University College Dublin on the human nutrition side. Also, we are trying to be multidisciplinary internally. In this regard, we are not looking at the matter just from a doctor's point of view as we also have psychology, mathematics, education, nursing and epidemiology involved. Really, we are multidisciplinary, trying to get towards some sort of transdisciplinary approach in which we would eventually consider bringing in representation from the arts and try to treat the issue as a whole-of-society one.

The second point, which is probably the most important and the one I would really like to stress, is that we have been very careful to ensure the community has been listened to and engaged with very thoroughly from the start. Initially, this began through the community organisation Cliara Development Company. We conducted several round-table discussions on the island with islanders. We gave islanders the opportunity to say yea or nay on the entire project at the beginning and we have continued to stress communication and constant integration with the island. We have a person employed whose sole purpose is to be the bridge between the research project and the community. This has been very important and why there has been a great uptake in the community.

One thing that has been a very powerful tool for us, as researchers, is that we have very strong community engagement. We believe that the islands represent a great place to conduct this type of research because we have communities which are already engaged. The committee has heard from representatives of the islands who have discussed their community organisations and the level of engagement that they have and that continues through this. We have individuals who are keen for change and keen to adopt new technology as well. We would see the islands as the natural place to conduct this type of research, with the goal of rolling it out beyond these individual projects which have limited duration into something akin to a national strategy. Among the most important people we have engaged with have been the doctors and nurses on the islands who have been very supportive. I will hand over now to Dr. Lineen-Curtis who can tell the committee a bit more about what it is like to be a doctor serving an island.

Dr. Noreen Lineen-Curtis:

The people of the offshore islands of Ireland, healthcare professionals and patients alike, are no strangers to using all technology available at the time to access care. From lighting a bale of hay to signal the need for help from the mainland to dropping medications by drone a hundred years later, many advances have been made. My father, GP to the islands for over 40 years, recounts visits where he travelled on foot or bicycle to see patients and I know there was one incident involving a GP seated in an armchair in a trailer being towed behind a tractor. Now there are engines instead of oars and cars instead of bikes.

As technology has become more advanced, we have embraced it all on the islands. Phones, faxes, emails, computers, and smartphones have all been integrated into use for healthcare. Technology is used to help care for patients every day of the week. This latest home health project is a wonderful new platform for improving access to healthcare and we are eager to see it continue and expand beyond the timeline of this pilot project. In the short time since the project started, several new diagnoses have been made that most likely would have been delayed without the project and the management of known conditions has improved. Patients are being given the knowledge and tools to become more mindful of their health and in many cases to start to self-manage their chronic conditions. They are being empowered to improve their health and this will lead to an ability to stay healthier for longer and therefore to remain independently on the island for longer. Work continues on making more consultations with secondary care and the allied health professionals available electronically as well so that unnecessary travel can be eliminated. This patient-centred model should be rolled out to non-Island as well as island communities. Improved connectivity will benefit all walks of life on the island and encourage more people to stay.

A detailed review of all of Ireland’s inhabited islands was carried out between 2014 and 2016 by the HSE and published in 2017. Among the many recommendations , the report states that:

The HSE will work to develop telemedicine services for islands with a view to facilitating the delivery of video link consultations; providing services that promote mobile assessment and enhanced service delivery on islands in line with best practice; mproving multidisciplinary working; and providing online training and education

However, all the technology is reliant on healthcare professionals, especially the GPs, to function. The Government's own National Islands Policy 2023 – 2033, refers to the HSE Primary Care Island Services Review and supports the need to provide the right care in the right place at the right time. GPs form the foundation of the healthcare service in Ireland. To make a simplistic comparison, if healthcare is compared to a house then GPs are the foundation. Of course, we need walls and a roof and these can be compared to secondary and tertiary care in hospitals. The allied health services are also needed to fit and furnish the house. However, we cannot build an extension without having more foundations, and no matter how many extra rooms are created or how many fancy fixtures and fittings we install, if we do not have a solid, adequate foundation cracks will appear and the house will eventually collapse.

In the recent Irish College of General Practitioners, ICGP publication, Shaping the Future, it was noted that Ireland has one of the highest rural populations in Europe at 31%. However, only 15% of Irish GPs cater for this highly dispersed and often elderly population with many complex health needs. Therein lies a significant inequity of access to healthcare for our rural and island populations. Over 29 million consultations take place in general practice each year and each patient, on average, visits his or her GP 4.3 times per year. Almost a quarter of these GPs are aged over 60.

I commenced work as a GP in Mayo in September 2001. Over the past 22 years the population of the county has increased by approximately 20,000. The age profile has also gone up. As per the Central Statistics Office, CSO, data Mayo has one of the highest average age profiles and one of the highest old age dependency rates in the country. People are living longer and have more complex care needs. The variety of treatment options available has risen and the workload for all healthcare professionals has gone up. Given the ever-increasing number of medical cards, the development and expansion of the chronic disease management, CDM, programme and the significant work that the Covid vaccination programme has brought, to mention a few, the workload for GPs continues to rise all the time. This is hugely important work in terms of the benefit for individuals, families, and their communities but there are fewer and fewer GPs available to do it. In September 2001, there were 78 General Medical Services, GMS, GP posts in County Mayo. At the same time, there were 21 consultant posts in the county hospital, now Mayo University Hospital. In the intervening 22 years the number of consultant posts has nearly tripled to 57 but the number of GMS GP posts has not changed and remains at 78. There are many other GPs working in the county. There are part-time and sessional GPs, but the overall number has not increased significantly, and the GMS posts have stayed the same, with some of these not even being filled. There are five GMS posts in the county that remain empty today and four of these are rural. The fact that the GMS contract still contains a 24/7/365 commitment to patients is certainly a huge factor in younger GPs voting with their feet and not taking up GMS GP posts. Another recommendation in the HSE's island services report is that GPs be provided with adequate locum supports to enable them to take leave and to attend ongoing training on a consistent basis.

Unless the conditions improve dramatically for GPs, in particular rural and remote GPs, this country will continue to lose our highly trained and talented GPs to countries with better working conditions. Without a GP to look after the healthcare needs of an island community, the population will slowly decline. The No Doctor, No Village campaign of 2016 is even more true for a community on an offshore island. What is required to turn this around? The 19th World Rural Health Conference, hosted in rural Ireland and the University of Limerick last year, with more than 650 participants coming from 40 countries and an additional 1,600 engaging online, carefully considered this question and in response published theLimerick Declaration on Rural Healthcare which asserts the right of rural and Island communities to equitable access to healthcare and is a blueprint to transform healthcare for rural and Island communities on this island. This declaration is also in support of World Health Assembly resolution 72.2 on primary healthcare which calls on all stakeholders to provide support to member states in mobilising human, technological, financial and information resources to help build strong and sustainable primary healthcare, as envisaged in the Declaration of Astana.

The Limerick Declaration on Rural Healthcare calls for a number of key actions for rural and island communities. It argues that the current focus on large urban based healthcare infrastructure development should be widened to include investment in rural healthcare infrastructure so as to ensure decent working conditions for rural healthcare workers. This will include funding to cover investment in innovative technological solutions to enhance, but not replace, the face-to-face service. The declaration also asserts that socially accountable higher educational institutions need to develop rural academic educational and research infrastructure closely aligned to the communities they serve and that building on established international examples, specific undergraduate medical, nursing and allied health programmes should be developed which are dedicated to producing graduates who have the skills, attitudes and desire to work in rural and remote locations. In that context, we need targeted admission policies to enrol students with a rural background in health worker education programmes. Specific rural curricula and pathways should exist within undergraduate and postgraduate training where exposure to rural practice should be maximised based on the 'If they can’t see it, they can’t be it' principle. We also need to deploy a package of fiscally sustainable financial and non-financial incentives for health workers practising in rural and remote areas. Here in Ireland, we have the rural support framework for general practice but the criteria for access to this are very narrow and the quantum is relatively very small. Both need to be increased immediately, not in 2024 when the framework is up for review. The challenges facing smaller rural healthcare practices should be recognised and supported through innovative solutions involving co-operatives to deliver equitable out-of-hours commitments, shared appointments, salaried posts, fellowship positions and partnerships and clusters of practices. We need guaranteed holiday, maternity, and parental leave and this should be a minimum requirement for a rural healthcare practice.

On the development of a clear rural GP career pathway or pipeline, a target regarding the proportion of Irish medical graduates required in general practice to deliver Sláintecare should be set. The equivalent figure in the UK is 50%. To keep an eye to clinical, academic and advocacy leadership for the above, chairs of rural general practice should be funded within higher education institutions, with an additional national clinical lead for rural healthcare within the Irish College of General Practitioners and a national lead for rural healthcare deliver within the HSE. We must enable dynamic co-production of data on rural health between communities, health workers, academic researchers, policymakers and civil society organisations by mainstreaming rural research activities. The lived experiences and voices of the community need to be reflected in the research used to generate this evidence. Ring-fenced and proportional research funding that is accessible to communities and rural researchers, building an equitable community of research practice, is required to deliver this. The recent motion from the Rural, Island and Dispensing Doctors of Ireland group at the Irish Medical Organisation AGM of a 2-for-1 model of practice needs serious consideration.

Equitable access to healthcare is a crucial marker of democracy. Hence, I call not only on the Irish Government, but on all governments, policymakers, academic institutions and communities globally, to commit to providing their rural and island dwellers with equitable access to healthcare that is properly resourced and fundamentally patient-centred in its design. Otherwise, it is very clear the rural and island communities will again be left behind. All the technology in the world will amount to little if there are no GPs to run the services.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I thank Dr. Lineen-Curtis. The first speaker is Deputy Ó Casathasaigh.

Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party)
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If possible, I want to ask a specific question first, then I have a range of other queries. My first question for Dr. Lineen-Curtis. Why is it that my children always run a temperature at 3 a.m. and not at a more convenient time? For the sake of people listening in, who are not familiar with the context or do not have that experience, my experience, if my child wakes up running a high temperature at 3 a.m. is that we will jump out of bed and make the run into Caredoc. More often than not, we will leave the Caredoc with a prescription for an antibiotic and strong advice to get a bottle of Calpol on the way home. Other times, and it has happened a couple of times, the doctor takes a look at the young fella and tells us we have to take him to University Hospital Waterford, UHW. It takes me 15 minutes to get to Caredoc, and ten minutes to ferry my son out to the emergency department at UHW. The call will have been put in ahead of time. Can Dr. Lineen-Curtis outline how different that experience would be if I woke up with my child at 3 a.m. running a high temperature on Clare Island?

Dr. Noreen Lineen-Curtis:

What will happen on Clare Island is that the person will get through to the nurse and she will ring me. She will assess the patient and will ring me. At the moment, due to the unavailability of out-of-hours cover, I am pretty much on duty 24-7. I had to get a locum to come here today. The difference in many rural communities with a small single-handed practice is that there is not enough out-of-hours cover, so the doctor is on duty a lot. There is nothing wrong with out-of-hours cover and it should be available. Nobody can be available 24-7. It is not possible and we cannot keep doing it long term. It is not sustainable but in a small rural community, it is often what happens. On the west coast, there are many practices where staff are on duty a lot of the time. Some GPs use a rota system and they cover for other practices. Of course, it is lovely to talk for people to talk to their own GP because he or she knows them better, but it is not always possible. Out-of-hours cover has to come into play, but it needs to be improved in many of the rural communities. It was brought in initially to try and improve the lot of rural GPs or single-handed practices in a rota system but, in fact, urban practices and centres have benefited most because there are more people involved in them. They do not have to take on as much of the workload. On Clare Island, someone will get me on the phone and I will hopefully advise him or her.

Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party)
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Have the doctors no advice on why children seem to always get sick in the middle of the night? Anyway, we will figure that out. I have a few more general questions. First I want to talk about the demographics. We talked about the idea of lighthouse communities in terms of sustainable energy. There is a case to be made for having lighthouse communities for e-health. It makes absolute sense to me to roll that out on the islands. I want a better understanding of the demographics on the islands. I will make an assumption that it is an older and ageing population, but I may well be wrong on that. I am looking for a very general answer, but perhaps the witnesses could characterise the general health of the islanders. This also plays into those demographic pressures and maybe the instances of chronic conditions that were referenced previously. I also want to ask about the availability of mental health supports. I know that rural isolation is a real and pressing issue across rural Ireland. My sense is that community is stronger on the islands but again, that is me coming in and making a generalisation without having a good knowledge of how things are on the ground and whether loneliness and rural isolation are an issue on the islands.

Dr. Jennifer Doran:

That is a great question. There are 160 people on Clare Island, but it is an ageing population. I mentioned newborn babies but there are people in their 90s living there. As the Deputy rightly said, many people manage multiple chronic conditions. Earlier, Dr. Cashman talked about older people whose kids cannot get planning permission and then say they will have to leave. There are a lot of older people living alone whose families live on the mainland. While the community does gather around, it can be a real issue, for example, in older people going into care homes prematurely or having to stay in an acute bed in a hospital because there is nobody at home to look after them. They should be well enough to go home, but there are no services. Physios cannot get out to them, or it is much more difficult, and there is no home help. On Clare Island, we have one home help who is part time. This ties in a little bit with what Senator Garvey was saying earlier. She said she was going to speak to the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science about islands becoming self-sustaining and self-sustainable, and training up people on the islands. The problem is that if people want to become a home help or a healthcare assistant but they live on the island, they are not going to be able to go to a FETAC level 5 course in Westport that takes six months to complete. How do we train people who live on the islands already to ensure that older people can remain on the islands? It is an absolutely heartbreaking situation to see a person who was born on the island and has lived on the island all their lives, but does not have anybody to look after them in their own home, having to leave for the last years of their life. It is no good for the community and it is really awful for the older person themselves.

The island has an ageing population. There is a great sense of community and people do look in on each other, but there are certain things that need doing that people need training and payment for. Obviously, everybody looks out for each other but if it is the case that a patient has been allocated X number of home help hours a day by the HSE, that is no good if there are no home helps there. Someone cannot be sent out from the mainland because that will take a whole day. That is one issue.

The Deputy also asked about mental health. My background is actually in psychiatry. There is a serious problem with mental health services across the country and shortages. Mental health is something that lends itself so well to being provided at a distance. On the islands, just like everywhere else, there are long waiting lists, in particular for adolescent mental health services. People deteriorate in the time they are waiting. Across the board, there is not enough being provided to the island in terms of mental health services. There are additional challenges such as loneliness and isolation. For young people who are being bullied in school, there is no escape. They are going home, living and growing up with these people all the time. There is a huge need there as well. I do not know if the others have anything to add.

Dr. Ian McCabe:

With respect to the demographics, it is an ageing population. It compares to the current population demographic of Japan in terms of the age profile, which is where Europe is going to be in the next 15 to 20 years. The islands, in general, are very much a precursor for the national problems that are coming down the line. Lighthouse communities are an exceptional model. There is also the capacity to engage not just the portion of that community that is most engaged.

Sometimes, we put out a survey. It might be online, which means we only get the people who are online. There is an opportunity to engage a large percentage of the community from the younger to the older. For both purposes, the university will concentrate on islands for our roll-out of this type of technology. They make an exceptional platform because of that.

With respect to mental health support, as Dr. Doran said, there is not currently anything in place, except ad hocor on the mainland, but it is definitely something we would like to facilitate. We are not part of the HSE. We are part of the university and academic network, but we have the technology, means and know-how to facilitate it, which we are doing. We are facilitating remote consultations with people. We have done a handful, but it is beginning. The biggest barrier is all the red tape. We have spent most of the past three months on data protection forms and applications. It has really hampered us but as these things pass us, we are probably focusing more and more on delivery of that type of thing.

Dr. Noreen Lineen-Curtis:

My experience of mental health issues, on a patient-to-patient basis, also is that the very ones with mental health issues are very often the least able to get their heads around planning enough to get on a boat, go across to the mainland, drive to an appointment, which may be very emotional or traumatic, and then come back. Those appointments are very often missed when they are on the mainland. Again, telehealth is an ideal platform for them to access that care.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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There is awful lot in this subject. We could be at it for a long time. As part of what was said, one thing was mentioned that can be underestimated, which is that as well as the pure health issues, access is key. It is about the frequency of the ferry or aeroplane services on Aran, their speed, quality, and the piers. It is also about the difference between getting on from a pontoon where the tide does not make any difference and, if someone is in a wheelchair, that person getting in at one level and getting off at the same level and so on. We must continue to invest in those facilities because not only do they have an impact on day-to-day living, but they also have a huge impact on the more vulnerable in society. I take from what was said that this is still a challenging issue.

There are two groups. The second group, the elderly, was mentioned as an issue. We want young people on the islands but young people often have chronic issues. The other problem with a young person is the syndrome will not wait. When our third child was young, on one occasion, we were lucky in that we got the doctor quickly. She was never sick much before or after but she had a roaring temperature. She talked about it again and again after it happened. Access is highly important, as is knowing what the correct thing to do is. That leads to the issue. When my kids were young, there was a local doctor - I live in a very rural area not much different from an island - who was available 24-7. That world does not exist anymore or will not exist in future. There is a big job for this committee to do - it is not only in the island context because we cannot get rural GPs either - as we cannot get island GPs. The job in Inishmore has been vacant for some time and there has been difficulty getting doctors for Inisheer. We need to look at the packages the witnesses put forward and see what we can do to ensure that not only doctors, but nurses, physios, and all the rest of the therapies, are available. We should look at this and do a quick bit of work on that issue because people will not settle. The people who are on the islands will stay but people will not move to places where they do not think their children will get good health services.

I have two questions. Remote monitoring was talked about. Are there specific examples of remote monitoring for diabetes, hypertension or whatever? What does it entail? I always make the comment, contrary to the impression often given in the media, that my experience of people generally, both urban and rural, is they adopt the technology when it suits them and they adopt very fast. I remember when mobile phones came in, within five or ten years, and the number may have been stuck with a bit of Sellotape to the back of the phone, people had phones and knew how to do whatever they wanted to do. Skype then came in and they were all Skyping their sons or daughters in Australia. When Covid came, they were sitting in the marts looking at the cattle being sold and were well able to say when to sell and when not to. People adapt. That is the easiest part of the challenge. It is getting all the technology, getting acceptance of the system, and getting over all these general data protection regulation, GDPR, problems.

I have a final question. Particularly now, and there is always a downside to everything, bike hire has become a major issue on islands, including Inishmore, Inisheer, Inishbofin and, I understand, Clare Island, because people who never ride bikes suddenly take out bikes for hire and fall off them. That is putting big pressure on GPs. It also raises the issue of evacuation of people suffering from trauma, which can be by boat or helicopter, and a safe way to get them from wherever they fall to the helicopter or boat that is covered for the medic who has to do the job, and that is proper and gives the equipment, especially on the smaller islands. We can put in an ambulance on the bigger islands but, in my experience, the smaller islands and how people are trained and so on, is becoming an issue that is raised with me time and again, particularly as regards the islands in my constituency.

Dr. Ian McCabe:

Access is key. That remains true. One of the key things is that e-health and telemedicine should be supplementary to the existing person-to-person healthcare. At no point, do we ever want to try to replace physical contact with humans, which is vitally important to healthcare outcomes. To that end, we need harbour infrastructure that is capable of facilitating this older demographic of people and ferry services that are adaptable or frequent enough for healthcare professionals, not just GPs and nurses but physiotherapists, speech and language therapists and occupational therapists, with whom we have been engaging. We are seeking to offer a telemedicine solution but they still need to come to see their patients. They are telling us that they have great difficulties seeing patients on islands because of the logistics of it. They say they either need a dedicated team just for the islands, or they need better ferry and infrastructure to allow them come and go because they see one island patient in the same time period it would take them to see five mainland patients. It is just not feasible for them.

The issue of packages for healthcare professionals would be better answered by Dr. Lineen-Curtis.

On remote monitoring, we are currently conducting a study of hypertension, which is high blood pressure. Our patients are participants who are also hypertension patients. They are issued with a blood pressure monitor they put on their arms at home and press the button. We have software on the phone that will take the blood pressure reading and present it to the cloud. We have all the technical aspects of that. We have the GDPR side of that 90% of the way through. Once the GDPR is cleared, we will be able to take that data and use it not just for remote monitoring but to enable virtual consultations. It is a steep learning curve with GDPR but we are getting there.

We also have capacity for remote monitoring of blood glucose through continuous glucose monitors. With the virtual hospital project, we plan to look at chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, COPD, and heart failure. Dr. Doran will be better able to speak about those.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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Are there any issues with bandwidth and resilience in using this remote technology?

Is there anything we need to do to ensure there is the bandwidth and resilience to make this long term, sustainable and failsafe?

Dr. Ian McCabe:

The short answer is "Yes". There are major issues, of course there are. Right now we are relying on the patient’s own broadband, which in many cases has a 2 MBps download speed and an upload speed of 1 MBps, which is completely insufficient. We are quite hopeful that the national broadband plan will roll out to the islands fairly soon and allow us to have home-based patient care. That is part of the reason that in the Healthy Islands project, we are trying to focus the care and the telehealth solutions in the health clinics on the islands. But again, we are seeing great differences not only in the space available in those health clinics but the connection that is there. We have some issues to address with the connection. We are looking at bespoke connections for some health clinics to enable us to do that. We are also struggling a little with the space because some of this is quite bulky. There are big screens and monitors that roll out, so we need a good amount of space. It is a big ask. Dr. Lineen-Curtis is brilliant. She is very accommodating. We are working through all these solutions but it takes time.

Dr. Jennifer Doran:

On the remote monitoring, so far our main focuses have been diabetes and hypertension. We did a morbidity map which involved looking through Dr. Lineen-Curtis’s records and mapping out all the chronic conditions on Clare Island. We also did another map of the Internet connection. That limited the number of people we could include in our pilot study because, as Dr. McCabe said, we knew from our original pilot that if people do not have a good enough Internet connection, then they cannot take part. We are working on that. It has been very successful. We have picked up several new diagnoses of hypertension that we might not have picked up for several years. I do not know how much the Deputy knows about high blood pressure but it is insidious and really increases the chances of heart attack and stroke. The sooner it is picked up and treated the better. We help these people with their devices. Our trial brought them to our health hub where we have a big Cisco screen. Professor Derek O’Keeffe, who is a specialist in hypertension, and I would remotely speak to the patient and we can use the screen to show them all the data we had collected. We can show them where the red section shows they are out of range – so their blood pressure is high 30% of the time and that is why we need to make a certain change – and then bring them back a month later. This is people in their 80s who might need to spend two nights off the island just for a ten-minute appointment. Instead we are able to monitor them remotely. It is the same with diabetes. It has been really successful and we have received a lot of positive feedback from our patients about their experiences.

Dr. Noreen Lineen-Curtis:

I will address the question of transport of patients on the island. We are blessed that we have two amazing nurses on the island. They are fantastic and they are my eyes and ears when I am not there. They are absolutely super. If one of the nurses says “I think you better come out,” I may as well start running out the door because it will be something urgent. They are absolutely fabulous and I could not enough about them. We are also very lucky to have fantastic evacuation services off the island in terms of the lifeboat and helicopter. They are always available and have an absolutely super response. But that takes a bit of time. In the meantime, if someone is injured on the island, one has to get them to a safe place. Many of the injuries happen outdoors. The e-bikes that the Deputy mentioned are the bane of our lives in the summer time. More and more people are on them, sometimes without helmets, and we get a lot of injuries such as fractured hips, skulls etc. At the moment we do not have any adequate transportation to get those patients from where they are injured to the helipad or to the health centre where they can be cared for until the services arrive to take them off the island. That is a big problem at the moment. I have been banging on about this for the last ten years but the vehicle out there now is just a small two-seater van that the nurse uses on her daily visits. There is no space to put a patient in the back. When there is an injury, and we have done this over again, we go out, we get the patient off, packaged up and ready to go and then we have to figure out who has the closest Hiace van and get them to hoke out all their tools and get the patient in. That is often in the dark, where we are sitting in the back of the van with a phone light on so we can see and monitor the patient and then we get to the helipad or clinic. It is really undignified and we can do better in this day and age. On the other small island I look after, Inishbiggle, one of the patients actually bought a big van in order that it might be used for this purpose because again, we had several incidents. We were trying to get someone into the back of a Jeep, which was the biggest vehicle available. It was a very ill patient. One would be hanging onto the back of the seat and the back of the stretcher so that the patient does not slip out the back because the boot does not close. We can do better in this day and age and we should. Our patients deserve better. The vehicle on Clare Island needs to be changed. It is not an ambulance that we need; that is too big and too high and it would not be used often enough to remain roadworthy. We need a vehicle such as something in a Jeep-style where we can put a stretcher into the back to care for a patient and get them out of the elements, get them to where they need to go and put services in as well. Very often when the lifeboat crew comes out to help with an incident they are fantastic at the heavy lifting or manning the helipad so to bring them from the harbour when they get there to the incident is important. Similarly when the fire service or gardaí or whoever is needed, we have to get them to the incident and, more importantly, to get the patient transported back to the helipad or the health centre. It is hugely important and has been for years. I would love to see that happen before I retire.

Ms Avril N? Shearcaigh:

I find the whole conversation about telehealth and e-health services on islands fascinating. It has a really strong place on island communities and will be very helpful into the future. It is important, though, that it does not replace access to healthcare. It means that some patients will still have to travel for appointments. The main thing that must be looked at, which ties in with what the doctor on Clare Island was just talking about in relation to the services being undignified, is that we really need to address disability access on piers for our local residents. We have situations where patients are having to be carried in their wheelchairs up gangways. Depending on the tides, they might have to be carried onto the top deck from the pier and then carried downstairs to get them inside. It is not unsafe and it is no criticism of the crew on the ferries or planes - they are fantastic and so helpful and kind – but in 2023 those people deserve better. It is really undignified; it is embarrassing for them and stressful. In this day and age, it is something we should not be dealing with and nor should they. Often these are really vulnerable people who probably do not have a voice and are probably not being heard. That is something that should be addressed as a matter of urgency on all islands, because I am sure it is the same across the board.

Another thing that can present a huge issue is people with acute health conditions that require specific medications. Often those medications have to be refrigerated and trying to get them to islands can be a real challenge. I know of patients on the island who are having difficulty accessing their medication because the company that delivers the medication has no experience with delivering it to an offshore island. It needs to be kept refrigerated at all times. They are looking into the options available, things like drones, but in the meantime it is really urgent that this person gets his or her medication and that is not happening at the moment. This is something that should be sped up. It should not be something that is put down for discussion at a meeting in a few weeks’ time where we will see if we can try to find something because at the moment, this person is going without the medication he or she really needs.

Those two things would really be transformative in terms of health on the islands and allowing people to live longer on the islands. It is about giving people dignity, at the end of the day. In 2023, we should probably be able to afford that to everybody. We are lucky that in Inis Mór we have new piers and we have a pontoon in Ros an Mhíl. I know many of the islands have much worse conditions, and the pier on Inis Oírr is dangerous for all passengers in the winter months, but we are talking about things such as a wheelchair user being carried by crew on board the boat.

It is dangerous, frankly, and it is not good enough.

Paddy Burke (Fine Gael)
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The presentation made to the Mayo Oireachtas Members in Clare Island was very impressive. The best place to get sick in Ireland is Clare Island because it has the availability of drones, robots and helicopters. I have two questions for Dr. Lineen-Curtis. She said that on the development of a clear rural general practice career pathway or pipeline, there is a target regarding the proportion of Irish medical graduates to deliver Sláintecare. The equivalent figure in the UK, as Dr. Lineen-Curtis said, is 50%. Is she saying that is 50% of all the graduates that come out every year and that they should be retained within the health services?

Dr. Noreen Lineen-Curtis:

Ideally, yes.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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Does Senator Burke have a second question?

Paddy Burke (Fine Gael)
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Yes, my second question is on chairs of rural general practice. I thought that nearly all general practices are sole traders. When Dr. Lineen-Curtis mentioned the chairs of general practices, what does she mean by that, and should they be funded within the higher education institutions?

Dr. Noreen Lineen-Curtis:

Regarding the percentage of GPs being kept in the system, I would like to keep 100% of our trainees in it. They are absolutely fabulous and I would like to see them all stay in the country but the current conditions are not conducive to that. Regarding a pathway, I feel that when GPs leave their training system, very often they are cast adrift a little bit. They have been managed through their GP training in a very structured fashion and all of a sudden they are out into the working world. There is not a very definitive pathway for them to follow unless they choose to go into a general medical services, GMS, post, which very few of them do, go abroad, or take a sessional post, which is what most of them end up doing. In the University of Limerick, they spend a lot of time in general practice and they have a higher rate of people ending up in rural general practice because they spend 18 weeks. I recently started teaching at the University of Limerick and I am looking after students in the north-west hub, who are all in remote rural practices as far as possible. It is a new development in the north west from the University of Limerick, UL. These students are getting an 18-week placement in rural practices, which is their longest clinical placement and because of that, they are statistically more likely to end up in rural practice.

The other universities maybe need to look at having their students spend more time in general practice than their usual two weeks, which is what most of them spend. That could be incorporated into the pathway, and then when they come out the other end qualified and eventually go into GP training, some way of gathering those newly-qualified GPs into a structured workforce needs to be looked at. Two birds could be killed with one stone here because GPs in situhave huge problems getting locums. If these newly-qualified GPs were offered salaried positions in a structured fashion where they could do a certain number of weeks for GPs A, B, C and D in an area, very often they will find a practice where they say, "I like that. I could work and live there and raise my family there". Now they are being asked to commit fully, 100% and 24-7, to a job, or do what they want, work part-time or leave the country. If they were harnessed into a more structured work format after they qualify as GPs, we might see a lot more of them choosing to stay. That is my belief anyway. We are losing far too many of our fabulous GPs to foreign countries.

On the chairs of general practice, a chair of rural general practice has just been established in UL. Professor Peter Hayes is the new chair of rural general practice down there. The other universities have a chair of general practice but it is not specific to rural areas. There is a very big difference between rural general practice and urban general practice. Yes we are all GPs but only people working in rural areas will really know what it means to be a rural GP. Establishing chairs in all universities for rural general practice would be an important step forward.

Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the witnesses for their presentations. It is absolutely fascinating to see technology being used in this way. I have a specific question on mental health. Are there any specific e-health programmes or projects on mental health to support people on the islands or in rural communities? Would there also be anything specific for children with additional needs? As we know, whether one is urban or rural, the support services are really bad and very difficult to access. I can only imagine what it must be like on an island, if one has a child with additional needs.

With reference to disability access, in Dublin 15 at the moment we have the Blanchardstown Centre for Independent Living, which is currently doing a Make Way week. If anybody is parking on a footpath, or if there is signage in the way or a café has a board outside, they are making people aware of the issues facing people with disabilities regarding access and being able to move around. From my limited experience on islands, I just cannot imagine how people with disabilities manage on islands. I echo calls for supports to be put in place.

Dr. Jennifer Doran:

With regard to there being specific or additional mental health supports for people on islands, to my knowledge there is nothing additional. One goes in and just like everybody else, one waits one's turn. It is interesting that the Deputy mentioned children with additional needs. That is one area where we have tried to facilitate virtual consultations. If one has a child with sensory issues, getting them into the doctor is difficult enough, never mind schlepping them out on a boat and dragging them somewhere. We have been trying to make our office space more friendly to children and to facilitate parents and kids in having those consultations remotely, where possible. It lends itself well but again, the wait times in between appointments are so long that one finds children disimproving and regressing. Children with additional needs should be able to move to the islands if they want to but if one is facing one's child not having the same access, or it is too difficult, then they will not.

To the best of my knowledge, there is nobody in a wheelchair currently living on Clare Island but there are definitely older people who find walking difficult. The terrain is hard. One ends up being very housebound a lot of the time, which is lonely. Dr. McCabe might know more about that, if he wants to add anything.

Dr. Ian McCabe:

If one looks around the islands, one might not see too many people in wheelchairs generally. That is not because people in wheelchairs do not exist; it is that they cannot live on islands. We recently had the pleasure of going to Inishturk, the neighbouring island to Clare Island, and the steps coming from the pier are about a foot and a half high. Even as an able-bodied person, I found them quite challenging. Anecdotally, from members of my own family who are elderly, I know that when they are not feeling well they stay put. What this translates to is that the older people are forced, as their disability increases, to leave the island and seek care on the mainland. That is a given. Also, they would be more inclined to stay away for longer periods, especially when the weather is unsettled. As some of the members know, Roonagh pier is exceptionally exposed and on a standard travel day there might be two or three metres of swell, so the boat might be travelling up and down a couple of metres at a go every time a swell comes through. People just cannot manage that. Couple all the access issues together and it makes a very difficult situation for older people, people with heart issues who may not have the best balance, and people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, COPD, who may find themselves caught short of breath. All of these people will have great difficulty travelling to and from the islands, so they do not. That is the bottom line.

Dr. Noreen Lineen-Curtis:

I would like to add that apart from the difficulty of getting on and off the island in a wheelchair, getting in and out of the health centre in Clare Island is not possible in a wheelchair. The access is simply not there. In fact, we have had able-bodied people trip and fall coming in the door.

It goes on to the infrastructure on the island as well. We have to provide not only safe workspaces for people to work in but also safe spaces for the patients. It is an old health centre. It has been there for 50 years. It is great to have it and it did the job back in the day, but nowadays the access is simply not as good as it should be or could be. It would not take a huge amount of work to sort it out and redesign it.

The other issue relates to the nurses. At the moment we have two nurses, luckily, who live on the island. They are from the island and live there. They will not be there forever, however, and when they do retire there is no one else looking likely at the moment to take up a resident position on the island. The health centre has to double as a residence and at the moment is simply not fit for somebody to live in or to stay in. It needs renovation. It has had a little done but needs a bit more and safer access for patients in wheelchairs.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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On that issue, there was an arrangement whereby 50% of the infrastructure costs on the islands related to health and were provided by the Department with responsibility for the islands. They got pulled out and were not caught in this cost-benefit analysis of doing it in a housing estate for 1,000 people versus aligning it with 100, 200 or 300 people. The experience of that was that it accelerated them and the HSE got very enthusiastic about doing the work. In one case there was incorporation of an apartment for locums - whether a doctor locum or a nurse locum, it does not make any difference - such that there would always be an apartment available for somebody who had to stay on the island. Do the witnesses think that if we were to revert to that, it would incentivise the HSE to prioritise this? What is needed on an island is very modest because the population is not huge, but it would accelerate their ambition to do these things and to do them now and would take them out of the queue that is there on the cost-benefit analysis.

Dr. Noreen Lineen-Curtis:

Absolutely, yes. Of course it would. If you want somebody to go and work on an island, it is already difficult to get housing, as we have heard. If you want someone to go and live there and work there and care for the patients in healthcare, he or she has to be accommodated if not already living on the island. We are lucky at the moment in that we have two who live there and have raised their families there, but we will not always have that. We have to have somewhere that is nice for them to live in - basic but nice - and safe for them to work in. Of course what the Deputy suggests would help. I would love to see it happen.

Dr. Ian McCabe:

I will add that those are the needs of 20 years ago. If there is to be development, it should also address the needs of the next 20 or 30 years. The health centres on the islands need the dedicated space for the technology we are pioneering. They also need the connection to the national broadband infrastructure to enable the type of telemedicine we are trying to make work to happen in those locations. That is a very important part of this.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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May I ask one further question?

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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A brief one.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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Very brief. Are the witnesses privy to what NBI has proposed for the island, which is fibre from the box on the island to the houses where there is telephone or, as far as I know, radio signal to the mainland as opposed to fibre end to end? Will that be sufficient or resilient enough for what is needed, or should we put the cable in under the ground like we did with electricity and make it fibre end to end?

Dr. Ian McCabe:

My personal position is that fibre end to end would be the better solution. We can tell the committee only what the needs of right now are. As the Internet of things and sensorised technology increase, the amount of bandwidth needed will dramatically increase. We are working with the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer, OGCIO, to trial a private 5G network on Clare Island that we hope to use for the health project. We hope that that will be in place in the near future to allow us to continue the roll-out of our health initiative. In the meantime, however, we do not really have anything so we are using private Internet and Starlink and other things like that just to try to come up with solutions for the minute. It is not a proper solution that we can roll out to other places.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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For the information of the committee and the witnesses, it is on our work programme before the end of the year to bring NBI back before the committee for an update. We will leave that in the capable hands of the clerk as regards a date for that, but the intention is to do that.

May I ask one question of you, Dr. McCabe, about the uptake of technology? I note what Deputy Ó Cuív said earlier, but there is still a hesitancy in using technology initially. When people see the benefit, absolutely they will use it, but it is a matter of getting over that threshold in the first place. In the engagement you have had already with the community on Clare Island, what do you see as the biggest challenges in that regard, or what are coming across as the biggest barriers to the adoption of digital health for the community with which you are engaging? We all believe that the learnings from Clare Island can be applied right across the country. My one concern is that there will be a time lag between the delivery of the infrastructure, the development of the technology and the actual practical application of that in communities. We need to truncate that aspect. The Clare Island project is vital in truncating that gap between the technology being delivered in software and hardware and its actual practical implementation and application in communities across the country.

Dr. Ian McCabe:

There are any number of different barriers. Where there is a need, those barriers are easy to overcome. We have patients in their 80s who are whizzes on the apps and are taking their blood pressure and other measurements. It is no bother for them because they can see the benefit. It avoids a potentially hazardous trip they would otherwise have to take. We are taking a whole-of-community approach whereby we are trying not just to treat chronic conditions but also to engage people in health promotion activities. We are trying to do that through a number of apps. There is perhaps a little fatigue when you introduce another app and another app and there is no direct benefit to it. What is more useful is the fact that the younger and the older people are all engaged in this together. When we have engaged the entire community, we have done blood pressure, blood lipids and everything else, and everybody is there as a group talking about it together. It is not necessarily a private thing that is hidden between you and your doctor in an envelope you get and look at in your room and say, "Oh no." It is something you talk about with your neighbours and friends. That part, I think, has been successful in terms of the technology adoption. We are really working to streamline the technology, the software packages, the apps, but again, it is a learning curve. We hope to iterate as well in respect of the Clare Island project. We are in the contracting phase right now. We will do something similar on Inishturk and Inishbofin, and for that one we will have a cleaner, smoother roll-out. We hope that from there we can roll out to other islands, while learning at each stage. There is not any one specific thing, but need drives adoption. That is for sure.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I thank the witnesses for their evidence and Members for their contributions. The one thing that has consistently come up in our engagement with the island communities and something to which the committee is very committed is the issue of pier infrastructure. It is not just access, as we may have traditionally perceived, but also the challenges for people who have mobility issues. The comment made earlier regarding infrastructure for the distribution of medicine was very interesting. This is something that maybe the committee can take up with the HSE. Then there is the broader issue of a dedicated team of allied health professionals for our island communities to deal in a hybrid way both physically and remotely with the needs of the island communities.

I will make two further suggestions. First, that the committee take the Limerick Declaration on Rural Healthcare and bring it to the attention of the Minister and see if it could be implemented. We need to look at the broader issue of health services in rural areas and we might engage with some of the witnesses here on that further.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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No, I refer to the Limerick declaration Dr. Lineen-Curtis just spoke about in terms of having that adopted. That was the one she spoke about earlier in her presentation.

Finally, Dr. Lineen-Curtis is right. We are talking about an issue in Ireland but access is an issue globally. We are lucky that one of our colleagues is on a global committee looking at the issue of healthcare. Senator Clifford-Lee is on the Inter-Parliamentary Union working group on health. We will take the witnesses’ submission and present it to her. She is travelling soon to meet that working group and we will ask her to put it on the agenda for discussion so that the initiative coming from Limerick can get a global platform, not just addressing the issue in Ireland for communities both on the islands and rural communities elsewhere, but also other rural communities across the globe.

That concludes the committee’s business in public session. We heard quite clearly that research is being conducted on different projects on all of our islands. We heard examples of that today. Some of it is happening wider afield as well. It is important that it is not just academic research; we are also looking at the practical application of research and the deployment of that to deal with real-world challenges in our communities, particularly our island communities.

I thank members for participating and I thank all the witnesses who contributed for making this historic meeting possible. I particularly thank the islanders here on Árainn Mhór for their hospitality and the school community for opening their doors and hosting us in this fabulous new art room and interactive facility here in Gairmscoil Mhic Diarmada. It is a fabulous setting. We are surrounded by fabulous pieces of artwork. Normally in Leinster House, we are down in the basement and we do not even see daylight. Here, not only have we fabulous views out the window of a lovely bright room such as this but we are surrounded by fabulous artwork as well.

I thank everyone who has been involved – the people behind the scenes who have been here over the past number of months, the staff within the Oireachtas for their assistance in making this historic broadcast possible. Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir for your assistance.

This meeting is now adjourned until Wednesday, 27 September at 9.30 a.m. when we meet in committee room 3 of Leinster House to consider the pre-legislative scrutiny of the social welfare (amendment) Bill 2023.