Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

It gives me great pleasure to speak in this debate. We must recognise the great challenges our society faces. As somebody who worked in developing industry and enterprise during the 1980s, it is important that we do not dismiss the opportunities there. From my experience I believe sometimes when the challenge is greatest it drives one to look at opportunities one might have overlooked in the past. We have to encourage people to look around them for new opportunities coming our way. In every cycle as the world develops there are types of industry that wither while new developments come forward. Some 40 or 50 years ago nobody thought financial services, which are causing many problems, or computers and IT would become the major world industry and that we would have a total demise of traditional industries such as clothing and footwear etc. We must look for the next phase.

Often life takes unusual directions. Looking around, particularly in rural Ireland, in most communities we have great untapped resources. I hope we would encourage our educated and erudite population to avail of those opportunities. Deputy Quinn would share my interest in developing a world-class rural recreation product. There is no reason our landscape and countryside could not become a European Mecca for people to come and enjoy.

We have made slow but steady progress with the various partners in dealing with many of the issues that have bedevilled development there. Access is not the only problem. We have never invested as other economies have in providing a full, comprehensive set of services for those who want to enjoy our countryside. There are many thousands of possible jobs there. Anybody with experience of visiting continental Europe knows that the backup services there far exceed anything that we provide. We have not realised the full potential of our marine leisure facilities. We have one of the most interesting coastlines in the world but it has not been developed.

Our greatest resource lies with those who have a good education and have worked in multinational industries, but have reached a point where they want to become entrepreneurs. They have technical knowledge on a par with anybody else in the world. We must unlock the potential of the indigenous resources of our people and look in new directions. The development of alternative energy using wind and wood involves significant technology. We need to combine the basic raw energy with development in the technology sector to tap these renewable sources. We need combinations of experts in many directions. Clean water technologies also offer potential to create employment and export knowledge to other economies because we could become leaders in this area. There are many things we can do. In this challenging time, when people are going through a transition, we must encourage them not to think that everything is over, but to see that often such situations are only a new beginning.

As the Minister responsible for rural development, I am delighted that this time coincides with the beginning of the new Leader round. This is by far the biggest rural development programme ever undertaken here. We have €500 million of European and State money to invest in rural Ireland. That should generate an investment of €1.5 billion in the economy. I hope the money will be spent in a creative way to develop all the resources that we have not yet developed.

It has become common in our society to play the blame game and to expect somebody else to solve every problem. Governments must lead, and we will do so and take hard decisions. We can only solve the problems, however, if the people are motivated and encouraged to become part of the solution. The next phase of our development will come from within ourselves.

There has been much ill-informed comment about our public service. As I said the day after the budget was presented, most public servants do a good job and most are needed. The idea that we could get rid of half the public service does not match my experience. There is no question that there are places where we must re-allocate staff. There is a small minority in the public service not playing their part but for everyone who is underperforming in the public service, there is at least one who is going beyond the call of duty and giving tremendous service to the State. We face challenges. The cost of the public service bill is an issue but to try to link that to public service performance or to downgrade the public service and its contribution to the State is wrong and unfair. The State has been well served by its public service. I have no doubt that it will work with us, recognising the problems and that we do not have the money we had last year, or in previous years, to solve problems. The commentary I hear all the time that seems to imply that most of our public servants are not doing a good job does not do any service to our country and the dedicated people who work in the public service.

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