Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Finance Bill 2006. Following on from what Deputy Devins said on the recent analysis of the rural renewal and the town renewal schemes, those schemes go far beyond the issue of economics, the economy and value for money. In the towns of Kanturk and Charleville, the town renewal scheme provided a huge impetus to re-energising and putting money into properties which had fallen derelict, particularly in the town centres. It is vitally important that tax incentives put in place have far more than economic value because for years, the life was being sucked out of some of these towns for one reason or another. We can look back over the 1950s, 1960s and 1980s when all our young people were exported out of towns and villages in rural areas. Thankfully, for the first time in many years, our population is growing.

Provision has been made in the budget and by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment for community enterprise centres. These centres are vital as incubation units in small towns and villages and should be tax incentivised. Will the Minister look at this to try encourage people to construct community enterprise centres? They are used to try to foster employment in small-scale facilities. Some villages and towns in rural areas, including in my constituency of Cork North-West, would benefit greatly from community enterprise centres.

Decentralisation and the pros and cons of it have been mentioned. I am a huge supporter of decentralisation and for the past ten years, I have advocated the idea. The belief that the Government can only work if everything is centralised in one location, such as Dublin, is ludicrous. This is a small country and peripheral parts can communicate easily with the capital. The national Parliament and parliamentarians from rural constituencies far from Dublin should advocate the merits of decentralisation and inform Government policy. People must work and live in rural communities. We must influence Government policy so that everything is not centred around Dublin, as we would say in Duhallow in Cork North-West, and that there is decentralisation. There is plenty of room for decentralisation in constituencies such as this. I congratulate the Minister on a fine Bill and budget.

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