Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Our Rural Future represents the Government's blueprint for the development of rural Ireland up to 2025. It provides the framework to achieve the vision of transforming the quality of life and opportunity for people living in rural areas. It was published in March 2021 and contains more than 150 measures across the whole of government for short-term recovery and long-term development.

Implementation of the five-year policy will be delivered by a series of progress reports and work programmes, which allow for the policy to be flexible enough to respond to new challenges and issues as they emerge. The first progress report was published on 25 February and is available on my Department's website. It provides updates on a total of 216 actions contained in the 2021 work programme. The level of achievement detailed in the report is extremely positive, with a completion rate of just under 80% on actions to be delivered by the end of 2021. Some key actions delivered in 2021 include the establishment of the national hubs network, the launch of the town centre first policy, and the publication of a range of important policies and action plans, including the new agrifood strategy, Food Vision 2030, the sustainable tourism interim action plan, and an action plan for apprenticeships.

A new work programme for 2022 is being finalised in conjunction with Departments and will be published shortly, with activity already under way on many of the actions it contains. The key challenge now is for us to maintain the momentum of delivery from the first year of the policy in order to ensure that the full impact of Our Rural Future is delivered for rural communities throughout Ireland. This policy applies right across the Government. Every Department has had to submit its actions and I will be holding them to account to make sure they deliver.

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