Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

The subtext of what the Minister has articulated is very Dublin-centric. It is important to realise that Ireland's development is radically lopsided. In European terms, Ireland is an outlier with regard to the size of its capital city in comparison with the rest of the country. Even in Britain, where London is considered too big for the British economy, London has half as much dominance as Dublin has here. To split up this country, literally a third of the population lives in the overheated capital city. Another third commutes to the capital city from as far away as Cork, Galway and Ulster every day. The other third of the country comprises rural Ireland, which is being depopulated of its young people. There is a massive problem with spatial development in this country and the Government is not attending to it seriously.

There is a number of costs to this. The first is the cost of this commuter hell for the families themselves. There is a massive financial cost associated with travelling to and from Dublin every day in addition to the massive family cost of not getting to see one's kids if one is constantly in traffic. I hope the Minister will listen to the following phenomenal statistic. In my own county of Meath, more than half of people leave the county to go to work every morning. The majority of Meath people leave Meath to work while a minority work in the county. In some towns and villages, one can play football on the main street at midday on a Friday such is the level of imbalance in this society.

This amendment is a very logical step towards a small rebalancing which would allow people to work well, effectively and efficiently while remaining closer to their families and in their own communities. I have no doubt that, if this policy was put in place, an opportunity to grow other businesses and enterprises in those localities would also arise.

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