Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

What Deputy Kenny says is correct. Yet, the Central Statistics Office figures show that employment is growing throughout the country, including outside of Dublin. I gave the figures on the increase in the previous reply.

Other initiatives we have looked at include the town and village scheme, the outdoor recreation scheme, the CLÁR programme and the rural regeneration scheme. The Deputy made a valid point about the towns and villages where we have dereliction. I set up the pilot scheme. I will be answering a question later on the matter. I set up the scheme to see what we can do at Government level to support people who, as the Deputy noted, already have investment in rural Ireland. That property is there. We need to give them an initiative. This is something I will be talking to the Minister for Finance about. The existing schemes are not working. If they were working they would be drawing down funding. They are not working and there must be some reason why they are not working. We need a mix. We need a little grant aid and some taxation. The schemes in place at present are not working. We want to do something. That is why I picked the six pilot towns. They have come back with an initial report. I hope to have the full report published between now and the end of the year. The initial report and some of the suggestions we have are very interesting. We need to deal with that problem because it is one of the big problems.

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