Fiona O'Loughlin (Kildare South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am pleased to have the opportunity to address the important issues of rural and community development. It is not an exaggeration to say that rural communities are struggling with stripped down services, bank, post office and Garda station closures and the ever present threat of rural crime. Many of our rural villages and communities are being decimated as a result of people being unable to get planning permission for a home close to where their parents live. Having different generations of families living close to one another is an important way to provide supports. Grandparents can help with their grandchildren and, as grandparents get older, they have an opportunity to get the support they need from their families. Some of our smaller schools are losing out in terms of enrolment numbers as a result.

Fine Gael’s eight-year record has been one of stripping away rural Ireland’s existence, leaving massive deficits in service provision, substandard infrastructure and supports. Meanwhile, farm incomes have been hit by severe price volatility across all sectors. This is jeopardising the family farm sector, which is the very basis of Irish agriculture, while Brexit also presents an existential threat to the sector.

There is no doubt that a two-tier recovery has been allowed to fester and growth has been concentrated on certain areas. Government decisions are damaging the attraction of living and working in rural areas. The European Commission has confirmed that regional imbalances across the country remain in investment, economic growth, competitiveness and innovation. More than 40% of Irish GDP is concentrated in Dublin, while the greater Dublin area accounted for more than 70% of total employment gains nationally in the course of 2018. The recovery is centralised. The Minister for Rural and Community Development has described Ireland as "imbalanced”, which is a de factoacknowledgment that the Government is failing rural Ireland. More than 50% of IDA Ireland site visits are still in the greater Dublin area. Family, friends and constituents living in rural Kildare and other rural areas have an aversion to the talk of a national recovery as this Government has stripped away their services and supports.

Growth and recovery have not occurred in places like Athy, Monasterevin, Carbury, Rathangan and Portarlington. The regional imbalances that exist have become more pronounced over the past eight years.

While we as a party support the national broadband plan, at the same time we are not happy with the Fine Gael-led Government now promising to deliver the plan to a third fewer homes, to take three times as long to do it, and for six times the original price. Of course, on top of that, the State will not own the network that will be built and paid for by the taxpayer. No doubt the ballooning cost will impact on the national development plan and projects earmarked, including new bypasses and the construction of primary schools, primary care centres and social homes, as well as flood relief in rural areas. The lack of high-speed broadband in parts of south Kildare has been hampering the development of many SMEs. It is a problem in homes where students are unable to access the Internet for study and research. The updated map has added 537,587 premises to the State intervention area and 13,415 of these are located in Kildare.

The LEADER rural enterprise fund had its budget cut by 40%, or €150 million, under the 2014-2020 RDP, and has been a bureaucratic mess. There has been a significant underspend in the LEADER rural enterprise funding stream, with the alarming statistic that 80% of the total 2014-2020 funding remains unspent. Kildare was allocated over €5 million in LEADER funding but a mere 10% was spent by the end of 2018. In Laois, which was allocated over €7 million, only 14% of that was spent by the end of 2018. The Minister, Deputy Ring, commented in the summer of 2018 that he would undertake a review of the programme and his Department has acknowledged significant underspending in the programme due to the length of time it is taking for projects to be signed off. From direct experience, it is a bureaucratic nightmare with the Department and the local development organisations disagreeing on criteria and criteria being changed during the time that projects are in place to get funding. Something radically needs to be done about it.

In terms of Garda numbers, the decision of the Fine Gael-led Government to close 139 rural stations has had an adverse impact on crime rates in these communities and it is important that we have some reopened. The Government has consistently denied that we have a problem with rural crime but this is certainly not the experience of my constituents living in rural areas. I have been calling for an increase in the Garda force in my constituency for years and although we have seen some increases, the level is still well below the national average. In 2018, we had 382 gardaí, but that has been reduced to 371 in 2019. In Kildare, we have two stations that remain closed with no sign of them reopening in the near future. Both the Ballitore and Ballymore Eustace communities need their Garda stations open and gardaí patrolling these areas to deter crime. The Government must commit more gardaí to Kildare and commit to ensuring safety in our towns and villages. Anti-social behaviour and crime are on the rise and Garda numbers are decreasing at the same time.

Our post office network must be valued for the role it plays in Irish life and the essential service it provides. Large-scale post office closures have dealt another cruel blow to rural life in Ireland. Everything must be done to prevent the loss of post office services in the 159 communities where postmasters or mistresses are retiring by advertising a new contract appropriate to the local area and taking into consideration the potential for co-location to continue the provision of post office services. Fianna Fáil is calling on the Government to initiate a public service obligation payment to at-risk post offices to keep them viable.

Post offices are more than just a place to buy stamps. They play a major part in life, particularly in rural areas, and perform social as well as practical functions. I send a special shout out to Fogarty's in Ballymore Eustace. Seán Fogarty, the postmaster there, has done incredible work in attracting new and different services in eGovernment, such as VideoDoc, which greatly enhances the service that can be provided. The closure of Valentine's in Two Mile House and the closure of the Moone and Ballybrittas post offices have created a void in those communities. I pay tribute to the community of Moone which has turned the former local post office into a coffee shop. It is only open at certain times during the week because it is run by volunteers, but they have really risen to the challenge. In practice, many small towns and villages across Ireland have lost both their post office and bank branches in the past few years. In Kilcullen, there is still a branch but for any cash services, people need to go to the town of Newbridge or Athy. Many do not have access to cars and public transport is limited, and it is a problem. These closures, combined with reductions in local bus services, contribute to the fragmentation of a rural community.

Talking about rural crime - I have mentioned the Garda stations that have been closed - a large proportion of crime is being carried out by those on bail for other offences or by people with previous convictions for similar serious offences. In 2017, 12% of all crimes were committed by persons out on bail for another offence. We need to look at tougher bail laws and legislation is needed to provide real deterrents against reoffending.

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