Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I like to simplify things and I will put things into perspective for the Minister. I will use the GAA as a model to do statistics from a rural point of view. I refer to the Minister's good friend, John Cregan, who is the chairman of the county board in Limerick, where we won an All-Ireland this year. These statistics will show us the fall-off in people playing sport in rural clubs. Two parishes had to join to form the club close to me, which is Granagh-Ballingarry. Going across the N20, there is Shamrock Gaels, which is the joining together of Banogue and Dromin-Athlacca. In the west, Croagh and Rathkeale have joined together. Those were all separate clubs, which have now had to join together to field teams in rural community settings.

We can then look at those areas and ask why those clubs had to join together. A related question is why people want to move to rural areas. The first reason concerns peace and quiet and the second is for the fresh air. Anyone who gets planning permission in County Limerick, however, must adhere to rules in respect of sight lines in the area within 10 km of the site. It is also necessary to pass environmental controls, so that a proposed building is not in a flood plain and the ground which is being built upon is able to take the sewerage system being put in. No burden, therefore, is being placed on the State. If we flip that situation around, however, Governments in recent years have put tariffs in place and changed the laws regarding farming.

Farmers, because of all the regulations and stipulations which have been changed, often need to sell a site for some of the upgrades required in their own farming unit to make them compliant. Some farmers are small and some are larger, but many do not have the amount of money required to upgrade to become compliant with the regulations, so that they can feed us with food products. Those farmers are under the regulations of the Government. The 2040 plan, therefore, is not only going against people who want to live in a rural area. People want to set up businesses in rural areas, and people are required to go out there to get the infrastructure in place, so that it will be worth investing in because we will have extra people in our communities. That will be good for our local schools and shops, as well as for those who want to set up businesses in such areas.

Let us turn then to look at a model such as that used in Croom, where a powerful amount of work has been done. There is a new school, although the new plan for the road shows a line straight through that €20 million school, which has just been obtained. After many years of trying to get that school, a route and a corridor has now been put through it. All things happen, however, and we get over them. What has been done in Croom is that there has been investment in 60 new houses and a new primary care centre. The main thing which Croom Community Development Association, CCDA, has done, however, has been to look for businesses to come onto the streets of the town and for residential accommodation over those business premises. If that residential accommodation was all put in one area, though, all the voids covered and businesses invited to come in, Croom alone would still not be enough to sustain them. It would be the people from the surrounding areas who would come into Croom who would make the endeavour sustainable. The CCDA development plan is now seeking businesses on the ground floors and residential accommodation on top to meet the housing need, and that is what is being done by future developments.

I have referred to what is happening in Croom itself. If people want to live outside the town, in an area like where I am from, they will want to be able to build a house. I have four sons and a grandson. Perhaps they do not all want to stay here, and maybe they all want to go. I would like there to be a choice, however, so that if one of my sons wants to live in a rural area, I could help to accommodate that wish by helping him to build a future in an area.

The 2040 plan, as currently drafted, does not cover that. This is where we are going wrong. I am from rural Ireland. People from rural Ireland who want to build in a rural setting should have the same entitlements as people who want to build in a town or city. The people who build in rural Ireland do not put upon infrastructure such as sewerage or water systems because they have to put in place their own systems. They pay through the nose for everything they do. All they are asking is that those who want to build in a rural setting be allowed to do so. In doing so, they will have to comply with every regulation put in place to date. In return, they will help promote businesses that want to move to rural settings and local GAA clubs such as in Limerick, which won the all-Ireland hurling final this year. They give back all of the time.

I call on the Minister to delay this process. Let us change the process. Let us enhance the lives of people living in rural areas such that they can be viable within their own areas. I accept that all of the necessary infrastructure is not in place to support the provision of bus services and so on but if one puts people into rural areas it then becomes viable for them to put in place a bus service. In preventing all of this happening, the Government is restricting the future of my family. That is not right. Every family and every person is entitled to live in whatever area they want to live in if compliant with all of the regulations the Government has put in place.

I mentioned earlier that there are 23 Independents, all from outside city areas. This in itself should inform the Government that what it has been doing for the last number of years is wrong. People in rural settings are putting in Independents to have their voices brought to the table. The parties are not allowing them to be heard because they are under the Whip. That is a serious problem. People like me left the party system and worked tirelessly and hard in our communities to get here to voice rural opinion and to ask the Government to change many of the regulations and stipulations it has put in place that are killing rural Ireland. As I said before, we are being taxed to the limit for infrastructure that the Government wants to put in place in other areas. I am asking the Minister to give back to rural Ireland, to give back to rural Limerick, and to take a look at what J.P. McManus does.

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