Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick, Fine Gael)

I welcome the opportunity to speak. When I first looked at this motion, I wondered whether it was a joke. The Fianna Fáil Deputies have fair neck, as they say. I often wonder whether the people were kind of stupid for booting them out last February, because to listen to them, one would think that in these nine months they would have everything solved. They have identified every problem that rural communities are faced with, so we have to ask ourselves, if they could only have hung on for another nine months, would we have any problems at all. The reality is that we would, because to be honest, the biggest problem we had was not that they did not stay the additional nine months but that they stayed 14 years. In that time, they managed to put this country on a one-way route back to the Stone Age. Now they come in here and have the audacity and cheek to distance themselves from this, while at the same time adopting an air of empathy - they understand what the people are feeling, they understand that rural people are under fierce pressure, they understand that the country has no money. It is an awful pity they did not do something about it when they had the opportunity, rather than coming in here now to lecture the people who have been left to clean up the mess they conveniently walked away from, albeit in depleted numbers.

In the last couple of days, I have been speaking to people of my own age group and younger, and I have been asking them specifically what they would like to see for rural communities. They have been hearing the Opposition parties, varied in colour as they are, giving out about everything that is wrong until they are blue in the face. What they are looking for is suggestions similar to those put forward by the Minister for Finance last week in the budget, such as proposals on stock relief, stamp duty and tax relief on land transfers from one generation to the next. These are tangible things that will make a big difference to the community. In the constituency I represent, the only industry that will have any major potential to drag the country out of the economic doom and gloom it is suffering at the moment is the farming industry. When the farming industry does well, many of the issues dealt with in this motion will be resolved - although it will take time - because the rising tide should lift the rural boats. The strategy adopted by the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, in which we target Brazil, Russia, India and China, among a swathe of other countries, with the aim of breaking into new markets for Irish goods and services, is something we need to examine. Unlike some members of the Opposition, who take cheap shots at the Minister for using the Government jet to promote the sale of Irish cheese in Algeria, I feel that if the Minister could sell another ten thousand tonnes of Irish cheese in Algeria he should keep the Government jet on the road every day of the week.

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