Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Michael Healy-Rae was unable to make it so we have four speakers. I am delighted to be able to speak on this issue tonight. I welcome the Minister of State and wish him well. We need to go back to the communities and get boots on the ground. The dismantling of the LEADER programme was an abject failure and a deliberate attack by the Fine Gael Government of that time. The former Minister of State, Tom Hayes, and the former Minister, Phil Hogan, once told me that communities were getting too big for their boots. Now we have a mess. The Government threw everything at the top and nothing at the bottom.

I want to raise an issue about Newcastle Muintir na Tíre, a wonderful community group led by Marian O'Dwyer, with some great applications for funding. It was successful in getting €190,000 to extend its community hall and make it more usable. Before Covid, it was quite busy, used daily and nightly, and the community wanted to put in more meeting rooms. It was approved for €139,000 under the 2019 town and village renewal programme. However, it had to make up 20% of that funding, €35,000. In the 2020 renewal programme, the local community has to make up 10% of the funding. It is finding it extremely difficult, however. It simply cannot make up the €35,000 as it cannot fundraise with the present crisis.

The group is now in danger of losing this funding. Will somebody in the Department do a Zoom meeting with the group? There are many more communities in the same situation. Surely a bit of flexibility with this year's guidelines can be shown because of Covid. The group in question was ready, willing and able to do it. It had contractors, planning and everything else in place. The whole project could fall, however, because of the inability to fundraise.

The 2040 national development plan must be changed because it involves herding all of the people into the cities. We are now doing our new county development plan in Tipperary. I compliment Marian O'Dwyer and Councillor Máirín McGrath for putting in a detailed submission to our county development plan. The 2040 national development plan is overarching and will be the ruination of rural Ireland. It has to be dismantled and derailed. We have very few railways left but this train must be taken off the track, whether it is through hijacking it. It has to be hijacked because we need to get back to basics to allow communities and people live, work and see their families grow up in rural Ireland. There are problems with homelessness in the cities because houses cannot be built. In the country, people want to build, are able to build and will build. We have to change the 2040 plan because it is overarching and crippling all county development plans. It is a monster.

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