Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Acting Chairman.

I join the Minister in acknowledging the huge effort that has been put in over the past number of weeks in the first phase of Covid by the local development sector, local authorities, organisations such as LocalLink, RSS and Tús, CE workers, and sports organisations in communities across the country. Truly meitheal was part of our defence against the first phase of Covid, and meitheal will be the essential part of the ongoing response to it.

One of the questions I would like to ask the Minister concerns these organisations. Many of them are facing huge pressure as a consequence of the restrictions. The Minister mentioned the stability fund for community, charity and social organisations. When will he be in a position to make announcements about awarding that funding? The Minister surely understands the urgency of that funding for their cash flow, and the importance of that cash flow to many providing essential services.

The Minister mentioned the community services programme, CSP, and I welcome the flexibility he has shown to CSP companies in the past number of weeks. However, as we move on, their commercial income will be affected by the ongoing restrictions. What flexibility will continue to be there as the various phases of our response to coronavirus are rolled out? Will there be flexibility when looking at their income, and looking at their inability to generate commercial income?

The Minister mentioned rebuilding rural Ireland, and that is the phase we must move to. Town and village renewal scheme and the various capital programmes are essential and it is particularly important that we now recalibrate town and village renewal scheme to take account of social distancing and of the extra space, and to use it as an opportunity to make our towns and villages even more attractive places to come to and socialise in.

On the overall recovery plan, it is reported the Minister has views on travel restrictions. Does he think it is fair that the 20 km restriction, which in my county, and which is also the county of the Minister and Deputy Conway-Walsh, would not bring one far, should be left as is, or should there be some sort of flexibility given for inter-county travel and travel within counties? That too would allow our towns and villages to catch a breath, even if it is kept to within the county.

There are issues around rates. Our rural businesses, communities and clubs will not survive unless there is a break given on rates, and unless there is some sort of continuing reform in the temporary employee subsidy programme around seasonal workers.

I suspect many private companies are making plans to take services out of rural Ireland and use Covid as a cover to do that. I refer specifically to banks. As Minister for Rural and Community Development, has the Minister taken a stand against banks which have used Covid as a cover to close branches, and are delaying reopening them? That is a disgraceful way to treat rural Ireland, given that it helped pay the bills that those banks left behind. This House needs to make it very clear today that we will not stand for withdrawal of any services from rural Ireland using Covid-19 as a cover.

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