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

I am raising issues on which I need answers. Why is there a disconnect between what was printed in the 150 commitments in the Government's Rural Development Policy 2021-2025, Our Rural Future, published on 29 March, and what is happening on the ground? The rural development policy states that it is 100% focused on supporting people and enterprise to remain in rural Ireland. The main ambition of the policy is to have more people working in rural Ireland. My understanding of this is that people would be enabled to work from their own local communities in order to revitalise town centres, reduce commuting times, lower transport emissions and, most importantly, improve their quality of life.

How is this going to happen? There is no development in towns and villages to support it.

Sorry, there are other people talking.

A developer cannot commence building when there is no basic infrastructure in place. I can now reveal that each town and village in Ireland is to be capped such that they cannot develop under the Government's 2040 plan. What is the purpose of bringing development to a standstill? Is it just a token gesture of updating existing services in some towns and villages? It does not increase the capacity of our water and sewerage infrastructure. The Minister for Rural and Community Development, Deputy Humphreys, has said about rural Ireland:

For decades we have seen...young people leave their local communities to live and work in larger cities. As we emerge from Covid-19 we will never have a better opportunity to reverse that long-standing trend.

An ambition of the rural development policy is to ensure that people living in rural areas have access to good quality public services that enable them to continue to live sustainably in rural communities. This will help them to maintain a good quality of life. Investing in improvements in public transport services, healthcare within communities, housing provision, early learning and childcare facilities and community safety is all a means to an end. It is written in the Government's manifesto but only achievable if basic infrastructure is provided.

I listened to the Taoiseach rattle off numbers, pointing to X number of houses being built here and X number being built there. Will he stand up now and tell me how many houses are being built in the small towns, villages and rural areas in County Limerick and around Ireland? I want to see if he has those statistics. He has capped that development under the 2040 plan. If he comes out with the truth, he will tell the people of Ireland that the 2040 plan is limiting the number of houses being built in towns and villages in rural areas because his Government has failed on infrastructure.

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