Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Ireland 2040 plans for where we will be about 22 years from now. As Deputy Connolly has said, there is much in the document to be welcomed. There is much in it that is very aspirational, that is very good and that we want to see happen. An awful lot of it is very vague, however. That is one of the problems I have with it. I am thinking of the sections on agriculture, forestry, tourism and all of that for rural Ireland. There is an absence of vision for people to be able to live long lives in rural Ireland. That is what is needed if we are to regenerate the regions and rural Ireland.

Agriculture has been the backbone because it is where productivity comes from. It is where the money is made that is spent in the local communities and areas. In most parts of my constituency where we are talking about suckler cows and sheep, the farmers are making very little money to spend anywhere. That is the problem we have. In general, they are depending on the cheque coming from Europe to sustain themselves, their livelihoods and the entire livelihoods of everyone who lives around them as well. There needs to be a re-focus on what we are going to do for the farming sector to ensure that it is viable into the future, and how it can be done in a way that will work for people living on marginal land mainly in smallholdings which are family farms. They are a unique asset of ours when it comes to marketing our produce and ourselves as a nation.

The other issue is rural decline and depopulation. Yesterday evening at 8 o'clock, I was at a meeting in Drumkeeran community centre in County Leitrim. It was about a small school called Tarmon school, which is on the shores of Lough Allen. Last year and this year, no child has started in the school. The three children in sixth class are leaving next year and if no more families come and no more children start, it will become a one-teacher school, which will be unsustainable and the school will disappear. Many of those small schools are going. Without getting into the argument about how good or bad it may be for children to be in a very small school, the story this is telling is that rural Ireland is dying. When I stand at Tarmon school and look around me, all I can see on the horizon are trees - Sitka spruce is growing everywhere. If that is the future, then we are only going to have foxes and badgers living on marginal land because there will be no people. Forestry does not really provide any employment or the labour intensity that would sustain communities and people. There has to be a vision for rural Ireland which is better than this.

The people at the meeting last night were saying the only way out was to do what they did in Kiltyclogher, which had a similar problem last summer. They started a project called KiltyLive. They invited people from the cities to come and live in Kiltyclogher, a beautiful place in north Leitrim. They got six or seven families to come. They did up a number of old houses and people came and lived in them. I think seven or eight extra children started in the school, so it is up to where it needs to be and will grow from there. It is not just about keeping a small school going. It is about keeping a whole community going. If there is a problem with a school, that means there is an awful big problem out there that needs to be solved. This document is aspirational about all of that, while the nuts and bolts of it are really not there.

If we want people to live in places such as Drumkeeran, Tarmon and Kiltyclogher, we have to ensure there are GP, bus and education services there for them. There must also be opportunities there for them and a sense of future. What is missing in many places in rural Ireland is a sense of future. Following the meeting, I spoke to a farmer who is approaching retirement and has four children. He told me that instead of encouraging his children to remain on the farm, he told them to go to college, get a good job and get out of the area, but that he now thinks he was wrong because life in rural Ireland is a wonderful life. In regard to people moving from the cities to rural Ireland, there was a man at the meeting from Kiltyclogher who spoke of his move from Dublin to Kiltyclogher and of the sense of safety and community that exists in rural Ireland. One gets the sense that one is not just an individual but is part of something bigger. This is the sense one gets from small rural communities. If we lose this, we lose the essence of what is to be Irish. The Government needs to focus on this when drafting plans of this type. Plans are great and wonderful but they are aspirational. For them to be implemented, investment is needed.

When I raise issues with Ministers, be it about schools buses, about which I spoke earlier to the Minister of State, Deputy Halligan, or other issues, the response is always that if the demand does not exist for a service it cannot be provided, but if a service is not available there will never be demand. People will not live in areas where there are no services. If there are no services there are no opportunities and if there are no opportunities, there is no activity. If we are to create a spiral upwards, we must have opportunity and activity. People bring about activity. Everything arises out of the human being striving to achieve. In many areas in rural Ireland, people are not striving; they are sitting back watching time tick by and hoping that everything will be all right. That will not work. Rather than producing glossy reports, the Government needs to invest money in the development of rural areas; otherwise, we are lost. The call for investment in rural Ireland is not a just cry from the wilderness because investment in rural Ireland is an investment in the country.

At the meeting I spoke of earlier, the man who moved from west Dublin to Kiltyclogher in 1966 or 1967 also told of the wonderful life his family have had there and the wonderful place it is. He also told of how when the community in Dublin come to visit him they frequently tell him, "You're in Heaven here; we wish we could have that". Reference was made earlier to the school in Tarmon that is on the verge of closure and to the attention given to the children attending that school and how well they are educated there. If children in Dublin wanted to attend a school like that, they would have to pay thousands of euro to do so. To get a place in such a school, parents would have to enrol their children before they are even baptised. The opportunity exists in rural Ireland to give people a better chance, a better place to live and work and move forward.

The issues arising are about a divide between east and west and, in the main, a divide between what we choose to do and not do. When I was listening to the debate earlier, I heard Deputy Mattie McGrath say that there was no point in politics or politicians because the bankers are in control of everything and we are powerless and do not matter. There is a sense these days in society and in politics that nobody has any power to address issues in regard to the HSE and so on, that all of these problems are too big for any of us to solve. That is very dangerous. Government is powerful. It does have the power to bring about change and to make things better for rural communities and for people who are in mortgage distress and so on, but Government has to choose to do that. Government has to make definite choices to show it stands by the people.

Deputy Catherine Connolly spoke out the islands and our coastal and fishing communities. By and large, the only fishing activity open to people in small harbour communities around the country is lobster pots because they are banned from fishing the sea, yet super trawlers are allowed to do so. If we are to revive the island communities, coastal communities and small fishing communities the length and breadth of the country, we have to provide them with the opportunity to make a living. There are many references to investment in this document. The aim of this plan must be to ensure that there are opportunities available to people to do an honest day's work, for which they receive a good day's pay, and a sense that the future of their children in their areas will be better than theirs.

Most people living in rural Ireland believe that if their children are to have a better life they need to leave rural Ireland. That is not good. It is a failure on the part not only of this Government, but of every Government since the foundation of this State. When the late Eamon De Valera set up the Land Commission, some people from the west moved to Meath and other people in the west expanded their farms. The mindset that there is no hope for those living on marginal land in the west of Ireland and so on needs to change. We need to provide hope. This will require a change in mindset. While this document goes someway towards that, it does not go far enough, which is its failure.

There are many issues I could discuss today, including renewable energy and other opportunities that could be brought about. We could talk about broadband and the fact that there is practically no broadband service available in any part of rural Ireland to anyone who wants to work there, if they had that opportunity. My question for the Minister of State, Deputy English, is if the mindset is going to change. We have many documents of this type. I am sure we could fill this Chamber with the many documents that have been produced since the foundation of this State on the issue of what needs to be done for rural areas, what we need to do to redevelop Ireland's spatial strategies and so on. What has not changed is the mindset that the only hope for people from the west of Ireland is to move them out of it. If this does not change, nothing will change. That mindset has to change and this can only happen if we bring investment to the people.

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