Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I sat here and listened to some of the debate on rural Ireland, and I am not surprised by the comments of some Members of the Opposition. When we look at our Independent colleagues in the House, their stock in trade is to come out with lines that are not technically true around rural Ireland and to continue to talk rural Ireland down. They say rural Ireland is dying and the people are leaving in their droves, which is inherently untrue. However, they do not let the truth get in the way of a good story. To my mind, I do not see too many Independent Deputies who genuinely want to see an improvement. They thrive on trying to talk down rural Ireland, and there are not too many exceptions to that.

I was struck by the comments of Deputy Micheál Martin at his Ard-Fheis, where he talked about a community services guarantee. We have not heard anything about it since and I am not sure what it involved. I think the general principle is that if Fianna Fáil was in power, it would guarantee services, irrespective of whether anyone uses them or not. That is not much of a way for us to go. If we had that process back at the time of the milk churn, we would have never moved on to the milk lorry or the pasteurisation machine. If we had it at the time of the fax machine, we would never have moved on to email, and so on. What we need to do is change the narrative. We need to discuss what it is that people feel they are lacking in rural Ireland.

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