John Brassil (Kerry, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I compliment Deputy Martin Kenny on bringing this issue to the floor of the Dáil. As a rural Deputy, rural Ireland is obviously very important to me. Before I get onto the specifics of the Bill itself, it seems to be a habit of successive Ministers, when in government, to look at situations and try to gloss over the reality.

I will stand up for rural Ireland every day of the week. We talk about broadband. There is broadband in rural Ireland. It is possible to set up a small business in rural Ireland, but the service is sporadic and not comprehensive enough. The current plan is to have a comprehensive service by 2023. That simply is not soon enough. We have to be realistic. If we want to put rural Ireland on a par with the east coast, we have to do so in a manner that is comprehensive and quick.

These are very simple issues. Look at local GAA clubs across every county. They cannot field under-age teams. They have to combine with other clubs to put forward under-12, under-14 and under-16 teams. That is the reality. That is not something we are making up. We have seen four action plans for rural Ireland in the last two years. We do not need plans any more; we need action. We need those plans to be acted on and delivered.

Deputies have spoken about roads. From 1999 to 2007, there was substantial investment into local, rural and tertiary roads. Now in 2017, that investment is literally falling apart. The investment in roads in 2008 was 50% higher than what it is in 2017. Let us not fool ourselves. Unless we put the investment and money in, then all the plans in the world are not going to work.

We had local development agencies delivering Leader programme funding successfully, providing huge supports to all sorts of communities and agencies across rural Ireland. Mr. Phil Hogan, in his wisdom, decided to end that particular service and to bring the local development agencies into the local community development committees, LCDC, and into the local councils, which he thought was a great concept. That happened in 2014. It is now 2017, and in my county - I do not know if every other county is the same - not one cent of Leader funding has been spent since then. Something that was working efficiently and providing a great service was stopped and replaced but the reality is that nothing has happened. I would love to stand up here and say the LCDC was working. I would love to be able to say some of millions of euro was spent in my county because of the advent of this organisation, but the reality is that it has not been, and we have to stop fooling ourselves. We need action and spending but we do not need any more plans.

The Wild Atlantic Way was a fantastic concept and hugely successful. How much money has been invested on the way itself, specifically on the roads on the Wild Atlantic Way? Again, if my county is anything to go by, not a cent. All those issues need to be addressed and, in my opinion, what we are doing is producing reports which are great in content but very light on action.

On the Bill before us today, Fianna Fáil obviously appreciates the concept of rural-proofing, and it is essential to consider it in the development of rural areas. However, the Bill unfortunately contains many weaknesses and these need to be looked at. The weaknesses I refer to are that the Bill proposes that rural impact assessments be applied to legislative proposals, which would include money Bills. If this was to be transposed into law, it could impede the passing of the finance and social welfare Bills each year. It would also not be practical to carry out rural impact assessments on all policy proposals, including where proposals have no direct impact on rural communities. The Bill would obligate all public bodies in the State to prepare a rural impact assessment. It would seem to be a retrograde step for public bodies which do work that does not impinge on what is desired in the Bill, or with a certain geographical remit - for example, the Dublin Docklands Development Authority - to have to carry out such an assessment. Hollowing out rural areas the length and breadth of Ireland would not help. We would be carrying out unnecessary work which would not serve rural Ireland.

We will support the amendment put forward by the Government. However, I ask that the issues this Bill raises with regard to support for rural Ireland be addressed properly. Forget about glossy reports and glossy announcements and put in real investment.

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