Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Why was that? I will tell the Minister why. It is because they told the truth. They said this new Leader programme would be a shambles and it is nothing short of a shambles. The Minister has an opportunity to turn this around. I do not think he can do so in this Leader programme. The Minister can look at the future because this one is almost in tatters, so much so that we can say it is gone.

When negotiating the programme for Government, a senior Minister told me that if a Leader company were not willing to carry out Government policy, it would be punished and the ones in west County Cork certainly were. It has been very costly to our community down there and we have yet to recover from that. They had built many community projects and we were commended throughout Europe on the roll-out of our programme. Sadly, that has been set to nothing because basically they were swept off. The reason for that is that they stood up to the Government and said that the new Leader programme would be a shambles, and it turned out to be so.

I hope the Minister will be strong enough to bring back the community voluntary forum, which is rarely mentioned here. It was a great organisation from the ground up. This was another casualty at the time of the Phil Hogan Bill to get rid of the bottom-up approach. This is what the community voluntary forum did. In west County Cork, two people were democratically elected from Bantry, Skibbereen, Bandon and Clonakilty, as would have been the case in every other county. They brought forward issues of concern in their communities. Assuming it is in the Minister's brief, I hope he takes the opportunity to overturn this decision. He should bring back more of the ground-up approach.

Does the Minister have the power to overturn the abolition of the town councils? In the Dáil recently, I mentioned Clonakilty which still continues the mayoral town council even though it was shut down as were the ones in Bandon, Skibbereen and Bantry. Such communities should be commended on what they do. We should be looking to put them back on the map again. These were excellent working town councils that were pulled down. I hope the Minister will consider overturning that decision.

However, it is not all bad news in rural Ireland. I do not want to paint that picture because many good things are being done but the community is driving that and is finding it increasingly difficult. If the Minister is serious in his role, he will overturn some of these disastrous decisions that continue to cost communities dearly.

Yesterday proved it is not all bad news. Yesterday, I took time off from the Dáil to go down to the Blue Horizon in Garretstown for the launch of a new bus service. It is the first bus service for the people in Kinsale, Ballinspittle, Kilbrittain, Timoleague, Clonakilty, Butlerstown, Lislevane, Ring, Grange and Courtmacsherry. This was funded by TII and while it might not come under the Minister's brief it is a great rural initiative. All local tourism groups sat down with TII. The Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Ross, has to be commended on this also. We now have a seven-day service running five times a day in an area never previously serviced by a bus. There was great excitement with 100 people there in the middle of the day to welcome this new service.

This is thanks to the TII and Local Link. I believe Deputy Butler mentioned Local Link and I hope some of this comes under the Minister's brief. An invaluable service is provided by bus drivers and the management of these companies as well as the volunteers on the boards. I am a deputy chairperson and Neilie O'Leary is chairperson. They are volunteers. I never took anything for being on the board of Local Link because I know it delivered for rural communities. I hope the Minister can further enhance that in his role.

In order to measure an improvement in rural Ireland and whether things are turning around, we need to look at the census. Sadly, when I look at the census, I do not see any improvement for rural communities. The population in many parts of rural Ireland is still falling, spelling disaster for local GAA clubs which have to turn to neighbouring communities. At one time they were massive opponents of each other and now they have to join hands to build clubs with sometimes two or three parishes together. That indicates to the Minister the seriousness of the situation and the importance of the Ministry he holds. I know he is passionate, but passion will not do because we need much more than passion to steer us through this. We need more determination and someone to overturn some of the wrong decisions that were made. It can be done.

How can people say there is a recovery? If there is, it is in Dublin at the expense of rural communities. When the Exchequer got squeezed, rural Ireland was the first to suffer. We know well why this happened. We lost our banks. We lost the bank in Schull-Ballydehob. The nearest bank is 30 miles away which is an incredible inconvenience to any community. How do we expect a recovery in a rural community if the vision it taken out of that community? In the past few weeks we have been told that there will no longer be a counter service in Dunmanway, which is another kick in the teeth to rural Ireland.

We lost our Garda stations. I know Stepaside had the luck of a decision being overturned. Maybe we can step aside and look at Goleen, Adrigole and Ballinspittle which had their Garda stations closed. Goleen Garda station, which was the most south westerly in Ireland, is now gone. We are worried about our post offices. Will the Minister, Deputy Ring, be the person we should speak to about our post offices? That is very much a rural issue.

The embargo on local authority workers is a huge issue in rural Ireland and is costing rural communities.

While I know the Minister, Deputy Ring, is not the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, we have seen the way grain farmers have been treated. This week they had a sit-in in Agriculture House. We need a Minister such as the Minister, Deputy Ring, to stand up and fight around the Cabinet table. I hope he can take that on.

Everybody wants to talk about broadband. In one community in Kinsale, 75 houses are without broadband, which is very unfair. I ask the Minister, Deputy, Ring, to step up to the mark on broadband. We are hearing further bad news on it. We do not need to hear bad news; we need to hear positive news. The only way to overturn that is to get the community involved in the roll-out of broadband.

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