Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will not read out the figures for all the areas that have increasing employment. There is no doubt the action plan for jobs worked. We are drawing up an action plan for rural Ireland. The Deputy is speaking my language. In my portfolio it is my job to bring all the State agencies and Departments together and the money must flow with the commitments made in the programme for Government. There are between 60 and 70 commitments for rural Ireland. The biggest single commitment is to broadband. The Deputy was correct to raise that in his opening speech. If we do not have broadband we cannot bring industries into any region.

The Deputy is correct that the money must flow with the action plan we are going to produce. The decision-makers must make decisions now that show that we are serious about creating the infrastructure in rural Ireland, first of all. The Deputy is speaking the same language as I am trying to speak to Government. We must have a plan and that plan must be implemented. Every Government Department will have to play its part. Every Government Department will have to be biased towards rural Ireland.

The Deputy is quite correct that we have a serious problem in Dublin. Good luck to Dublin. It is the capital city and there are many people employed and living there. However, at the same time, we want to try to bring people out into the regions.

With regard to the Action Plan for Jobs in the south east and in other parts of the country, there has been an increase in jobs. We need the same kind of target for rural Ireland as we had for the Action Plan for Jobs. To be fair to the Government and the Taoiseach, a Cabinet sub-committee is dealing with actions for rural Ireland. I intend to lead that along with the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, to make sure that we get the infrastructure, the funding and the money to flow with the plan.

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