Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am happy to speak on this important issue. Like others I compliment and congratulate the Minister. I know where his heart is on this issue. I know he was robust when he was in opposition and I know he was glad to get the portfolio he has. He is doing his best with it. I want him to be honest with us.

I have one ceist before I start. I hope he got some treatment from his local vet for the dog at home that is always scratching. The dog probably has mange. The Minister could use DDT and other things on him if he is not in a healthy state. I would not like to keep him scratching all the time like the Minister said one day in the Dáil. The Minister should bring him to the vet or else bring him to Knock to get him blessed.

I start by acknowledging some of the positive outcomes for rural development that have happened recently. I warmly welcome the announcement that ten community-based enterprises in County Tipperary are set to receive grants totalling €682,000 under the community services programme, CSP, which has been a wonderful programme for many a decade. I salute the manager of CDA in Cahir, Helen, who retired recently. She did a great job. I was absolutely delighted that the magnificent work being done by these Tipperary enterprises has been acknowledged and that further support is now being given. They did not get that support by accident and had to make great efforts with an application process and have everything put forward on paper and a good plan and indeed a vision to keep their communities going. They then went through all the hoops and got through. I wish Nellie Williams, the acting chair who is sitting in for Helen, well.

Among those receiving grant support is Cahir Developments Association Company which is set to receive €43,232. Money could not be better spent. It does great work in those communities. It provides employment opportunities with training facilities to upskill for other work.

John Delaney visited Cahir Park AFC recently. Members of that club asked me to compliment him on the support he gave it and other clubs in Tipperary. It is easy to kick a man when he is down; I will not get involved in it but we must praise the bridges we go over. Cahir Park AFC will receive €92,399, while the Millennium Family Resource Centre in east Tipperary has been granted €72,266. Sr. Patricia and her team there are splendid. They work on a wide range of services that are expanding all the time to the benefit of the more vulnerable and people who have been left behind by the State, the HSE and other development agencies that are not doing it.

Other recipients include the Slieveardagh Rural Development Limited which received €40,000. Tipperary Midwest Radio Co-Operative Society Limited received €92,000 and Tipperary Technology Park Company received €72,000. I have fought with the Minister week in, week out to look after Tipperary town and that goes some way because that community radio station does tremendous work.

This kind of support is very welcome, especially given that the CSP is designed to support community companies and co-operatives to deliver local social, economic and environmental services that tackle disadvantage.

We must tackle disadvantage any time we get the opportunity.

We need far more of this kind of grant distribution for projects in rural Ireland to address the historical legacy of severe under-investment by this and previous Governments. The funding that is now being delivered is only a catch-up with respect to the massive cuts to rural Ireland in recent years. The Minister might not have been present at the talks on the formation of a Government but Deputies Michael Collins, Michael Healy-Rae and I and our Rural Independents Group fought very hard to have all legislation rural-proofed. The Government committed to doing that but, sadly, it is not doing that. We can see that with Thurles post office, which is a viable post office in a town that has been hammered since the beet factory and Erin Foods closed. There was no bypass for the town and there are many other problems but it had a good post office. The people have an affinity to it and there are good staff working in it as well. We have the 2020 programme and €8 million is being spent on a square, which is famed in song and story. Bunaíodh an Cumann Lúthchleas Gael ansin. The post office is being taken out of the town and being moved to a shopping centre to suit big business. It is the interests of big business again against the daoine beaga and the siopaí beaga. The ratepayers and taxpayers who need to be supported should be supported. Ní neart go cur le chéile. It is daft. We have a Minister, Deputy Bruton, who, unlike the Minister present, will not meet anybody. He is like the high priest. It is not his problem. He is a 99% shareholder on behalf of the taxpayers of the country but he does not want to meet anyone. He says it is a commercial decision of An Post. That is bunkum and baloney. The Government is in charge, the Minister, Deputy Bruton, is in charge and a wrong decision is wrong regardless of where it happens. He must wake up to that fact and stand with the people in Thurles who want their post office to remain in the town.

As I said, the funding being delivered is only a catch-up. For instance, in terms of cuts to LEADER funding, the total Local Government Fund allocation for all councils in Tipperary suffered a reduction of €6.8 million across all councils in the county as recently as four years ago. That was when we had councils before they were attacked by Big Phil the destroyer and abolished, which unfortunately was supported by the Minister. The LEADER funding for rural communities throughout the country has been dramatically cut for the period 2014 to 2020. The Minister's spin machine might say otherwise but he will know that is right. The funding in question has been cut by 43%, which means that towns and villages in rural areas will lose services relating to childcare, rural transport and supports for start-up businesses. The Minister and his colleagues backed the Minister, Deputy Ross, and his punitive legislation to destroy rural Ireland and the lifestyles of rural people. The rest of our colleagues sat on their hands and let them pass it. The Minister, Deputy Ross, could not do the damage himself, so the Minister and his colleagues helped him. Bhí siad ag cabhrú leis gach lá. The Members on my right agreed with him. Now they are all giving out it now that people cannot go out anywhere. They are locked in their homes. The funding for the rural link service has been increasingly cut. An amount of €376 million was allocated under the programme for the period 2007-2013 but under the 2014 programme it was shown that for the period 2014-2020, the allocation is only €220 million. That is a cut of more than €150 million.

On a separate issue, and I respect this does not come directly under his Department, but indirectly it affects rural Ireland, I refer to the Brexit loan scheme. As of Friday, 22 February, a total of 462 eligibility applications have been received for this €300 million scheme, according to Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine. Of the 462 eligibility applications received, some 413 have been approved, with ten ineligible. The total number of loans progressed to sanction at bank level is 81, with a total value of €17.3 million, 13 of which relate to food businesses with a value of €4.2 million. Everything is strangled in bureaucracy, red tape and officialdom. We cannot breathe with it. Small businesses cannot survive with the burden of it. What is frightening is the way in which it speaks to the operation and delivery of these kinds of schemes. There is great fanfare and big budgets but the payment rates do not match approval levels. Perhaps the Minister might comment on any blockages he has identified in terms of what it is that delays access to funds or grants in his Department.

I also want to raise rural crime. As the Minister will be aware, this is a pressing issue. The Rural Independent Group's motion on rural crime was passed by this House. All of us who live and work in rural communities are only too aware of the concern that continues to exist about what in many respects is an becoming an increasing problem. While we accept that some very productive efforts have been made such as the introduction of Operation Thor, we remain deeply troubled at the lack of co-ordination in tackling the issue.

Last year, when the ICSA was before the Joint Committee on Rural and Community Development, it referenced a number of reports it had published on agricultural crime in conjunction with Waterford Institute of Technology, WIT. The reports were authored by Dr. Kathleen Moore Walsh and Louise Walsh of WIT. The reports were based on sample surveys of 861 farmers across Ireland as well as householders and they make for stark reading. The first report outlined the following figures: of 861 respondents, 66% had experienced some form of crime which impacted them on their farms and 41% of respondents had been the victim of a crime more than once. The second report quantified that the average value of the theft on farms and rural households was €1,815 and that incidents of vandalism and criminal damage cost farmers and other householders an average of €360. That is not right or fair. Those people are entitled to live their lives with some degree of security and safety. Crime does not get reported to insurance companies. A total of incidents of theft and 348 incidents of vandalism, criminal damage or trespass were not reported to the insurance companies. The third report, however, showed that farmers were also reluctant to report crime to the Garda. That is very worrying because we do not have enough gardaí. We do not have enough in Tipperary, which is one of the worst counties in the country. A total of 45% of respondents did not report incidents of agricultural crime to the Garda. The reasons, according to the ICSA and the authors of the study, can be summarised as a sense of hopelessness that anything could be done. Imagine people living in rural Ireland believing that. The Minister should know they are out in west Mayo as well where I visit the odd time. In fact, I am going to Castlebar this weekend to support my daughter in a novelty act in Scór and the Newcastle rinceoirí dancers as well. We might see him there in the Travellers Friend. He might drop in to say hello but the Minister knows what is happening before our eyes. Rural Ireland is being stifled-----

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