Michael Harty (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Tánaiste. That is the very point. Co-ordination is needed. I understand the various grants that are available to upgrade accommodation in towns and villages but there is no national co-ordination point or programme to take things to a higher level and which would be proactive rather than reactive. That is the point I am trying to make. There needs to be a programme which is advertised and promoted. It requires local communities to participate and to want to get involved. I have been speaking to the Peter McVerry Trust and understand it is willing to identify people on its books who would choose to relocate. I am sure Focus Ireland and other housing agencies and local authorities in general would readily identify people who would wish to relocate, to actively promote that programme and to allow them to make contact with local communities where they would have some generational contact. Everybody in Dublin is only one or two generations away from some part of rural Ireland and they still have connections there. They may wish to move back, reignite those connections and be accepted into a community. If one scales this up, two families benefitting in ten villages across 26 counties amounts to 520 families and, probably, several thousand people. It is only a small part of the solution, but it would make huge inroads.

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