Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after “That” and substitute the following:“Dáil Éireann, while recognising that rural proofing and equality are important issues to ensure the development of rural areas, declines to give the Rural Equality Bill 2017 a second reading for the following reasons:

(a) the proposals in the Bill would require rural impact assessments to be carried out on all enactments, including Money Bills, this would have implications, in particular, for the Finance Bill, and could have serious implications for the timely passing of legislation to give effect to the annual Budget;

(b) the proposed Bill, as presented, has significant drafting flaws in relation to definitions and level of ambition;

(c) the proposed Bill will create difficulties in relation to the scope of its application and in relation to the administrative burden it will create as there are a significant number of public bodies for which a rural impact scheme is not relevant or material because of the nature of their work (e.g. Irish Film Classification Office), or their limited geographical remit (e.g. Dublin Docklands Development Authority);

(d) the Action Plan for Rural Development, which takes a whole-of-Government approach to both the economic and social development of rural Ireland, includes a commitment to

‘develop a new and effective rural proofing model which would ensure that rural development issues are considered in the decision-making processes of all Government Departments, State bodies and agencies.’; and

(e) the Minister for Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs proposes that, in delivering the commitment in the Action Plan, the Oireachtas Committee on Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs should examine the issue and recommend whether rural proofing would be best achieved by non-legislative actions or by legislative actions, or a mixture of both, and present a report to Dáil Éireann on the matter.”

I welcome Deputy Kenny's interest and initiative in bringing this matter before the House. We all want a better deal for rural Ireland and to ensure rural issues are to the forefront of policy-making. The Government is making a concerted effort to make this a reality through more co-ordinated policy-making for rural Ireland and the establishment of a Cabinet Minister with responsibility for rural affairs.

The Government is supporting rural Ireland and I want to outline a number of things that have happened recently. I launched the €20 million town and village renewal scheme. The Minister of State, Deputy Michael Ring, launched the CLÁR and rural recreation programmes. Those schemes will provide a vital support to rural communities right across the country. In February, I announced the successful applications under the arts and culture capital scheme, which was the largest investment in our regional arts facilities in a decade with over 85% of the funding going to protect projects outside of Dublin.

We are investing in rural Ireland right across Government. The Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Shane Ross, increase the budget for local and regional roads by 9% this year. The Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Leo Varadkar, has provided an additional 500 places on the rural social scheme. I met the Minister of State, Deputy Seán Canney, today. He is investing €430 million in flood relief measures right across the country between now and 2021.

The Minister for Justice and Equality has introduced a new grant scheme to help communities to provide CCTV systems, which will help to combat rural crime. We have an ambitious target to create 135,000 jobs outside of Dublin between now and 2020. The unemployment figures released yesterday show that the unemployment rate now stands at 6.2%, down from a peak of over 15.2%, which is very encouraging. Those jobs are being created in all regions. There is a lot to be positive about when it comes to rural Ireland. We need to move away from the constant narrative that rural Ireland is dying on its feet because that does a disservice to all of those people who are proud to live in our rural communities. Rural Ireland is resilient and fighting back.

Deputy Kenny mentioned broadband. The recent announcement from the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Deputy Denis Naughten, on the agreement with Eir means that 300,000 more premises, most of which are located in rural Ireland, will have access to high speed quality broadband within the next 90 weeks.

A lot of things are happening in rural Ireland. Rural-proofing of Government policy is a key commitment in A Programme for a Partnership Government and the Government's Action Plan for Rural Development. I have no doubt about the good intentions behind the Bill, but the fact is that it is flawed in many respects.

The Bill provides for the preparation of rural impact schemes by public bodies. These schemes would set out the arrangements to be put in place by public bodies for assessing and consulting on the likely socioeconomic impact of measures introduced by them in rural Ireland. The Bill also provides for the monitoring of such impacts, the publication of results in regard to this monitoring process, the training of staff and ensuring public access to information and services provided by the public body.

The Bill, in essence, wants public policy makers to ensure that issues affecting rural Ireland are considered in full before any policy or initiative is agreed nationally and locally. For a number of reasons I believe this will, in fact, create the opposite effect and will, by the nature of the various provisions set out in the Bill, impose such a burden on public bodies that it will in effect lead to public bodies engaging in a box-ticking exercise. Rural Ireland would be seen as an encumbrance, an administrative shackle and something to mitigate against, not as the vibrant economic force it has the potential to be.

The scope envisaged by the Bill is so wide that it envisages that assessment will be carried out in respect of any enactment, executive or other decision, determination or policy of a public body and it would seem it is intended to apply to all public bodies regardless of their function. This is simply not practical. It would, in effect, bring policy-making and decision-making at all levels to a halt.

The Bill specifically states that enactments in a money Bill would also be covered by its provisions, thereby applying it to enactments such as a finance Bill. This could have serious implications for the timely passing of legislation to give effect to the annual budget. It would also be unreasonable to apply a rural impact assessment to legislation or policy which has no bearing on rural communities such as legislation governing purely technical matters. It would be a waste of time and resources.

The Bill, as drafted, can be interpreted as requiring all public bodies to prepare a rural impact scheme. However, there are likely to be a significant number of public bodies for which such a scheme is not relevant or material because of the nature of their work or geographical remit. Why would we seek to impose this on bodies and agencies when we will not see any real benefits for rural Ireland?

I referred to the administrative burden that this Bill would impose on policy-makers at national and local level. I accept the need for better rural-proofing of policies across national and local government systems, but putting in place a statutory requirement to rural-proof every measure of every single body, as foreseen in the Bill, is like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. It will impose a set of obligations on policy-makers across the public service which will have little or no meaning to many.

We have to accept the likelihood that every policy and enactment would claim to be rural friendly, without us necessarily seeing a genuine advancement in or engagement with rural progress. Those policies that genuinely need to be considered more closely in the context of rural impacts will be lost in a sea of meaningless administration.

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I also have concerns about the Bill from a legal perspective in that it suffers from a number of technical and administrative flaws. For example, it envisages the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine as the responsible Minister. While we all acknowledge the vital importance of the agriculture sector to the rural economy, rural Ireland does not stop at the farm gate. Indeed, that is a point that was reiterated to me on a number of occasions during our consultations on the Action Plan for Rural Development. What we all want is for rural Ireland to be treated fairly in decision making locally and nationally but what we need is genuine and meaningful engagement on rural issues with policy makers at both national and local level. We need to work collaboratively with people to get the best results. We do not want to be in the position of dictating a one-size-fits-all approach. We do not need an overly complicated and burdensome set of legislative proposals which will have us all tied up in administrative knots for the foreseeable future with no real or tangible benefit for rural Ireland. We need a flexible, common-sense approach.

I accept fully that the current arrangements for rural-proofing of public policies and legislation could be improved. The Government's Action Plan for Rural Development, "Realising our Rural Potential", which I launched earlier this year, takes a whole-of-Government approach to both the economic and social development of rural communities across Ireland. The Action Plan includes a firm commitment by my Department to develop a rural-proofing model by the end of this year. However, we need to look at all the options open to us. It is premature to go straight down the legislative route before examining all the ways and means by which we can bring about improvements to the current arrangements. The rural-proofing model will be developed through consultation with key experts in rural development. My officials have already begun examining the various examples of rural proofing that are currently operational in other jurisdictions and how we might best develop our own model. I am determined that whatever model we ultimately develop, rural-proofing should start at the earliest possible stage of policy development. It should also apply only to those bodies where such proofing is relevant and where it will lead to real impacts in rural communities. The model needs to be flexible, practical and, above all, effective. It should allow relevant bodies, agencies and Departments to engage in a meaningful way with policies and initiatives that impact on rural Ireland.

I am proposing today that the Joint Committee on Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs be part of this process. It would be very helpful if the committee could examine the issue and recommend whether rural-proofing would be best achieved by non-legislative actions, by more targeted legislative actions or by a mixture of both. A report on the matter could then be presented to the Dáil. In its submission to the consultation process on the Action Plan for Rural Development, the joint committee expressed concern that rural-proofing requirements could be at risk of becoming a box-ticking exercise. As such, I hope the joint committee will share my view that it is in all of our interests to take a more detailed look at the various options open to us to achieve the maximum benefit for rural communities.

I am convinced that this Bill would not have the desired effect of ensuring rural Ireland remains at the forefront of policy-making but would rather have the opposite effect. This legislation would lead to rural Ireland being seen as a problem to be overcome and a box to tick, which is something none of us wants to see. As I have said many times before, we must focus on the positives in rural Ireland. We must change the narrative and develop the potential of our rural communities to contribute to our economy and recognise them as part of our identity.

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