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

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. As she knows, the Government is committed to publishing a ten-year policy on island development, with associated three-year action plans. My Department has completed the bilateral meetings with all relevant Departments.

These bilateral meetings have provided an opportunity for detailed discussion of the issues raised by island communities and for Departments to assess how they might help address the various issues raised.

The public consultation meetings have also been completed. Due to the Covid-19 restrictions, it was not possible for officials to visit a number of islands and the public consultation meetings were moved to an online format. However, some island communities did not wish to engage with online meetings, preferring to wait for public consultation meetings to be held on their islands.

The final consultation meetings were held on Tory Island, County Donegal, and Clare Island, County Mayo, earlier this month. Senior officials from my Department were in attendance at these meetings and engaged with the island communities on the issues of concern to them.

The most recent meeting of the interdepartmental committee for the islands was held on 18 May, where participating Departments reviewed progress on the policy development and agreed the next steps to be taken. Work has begun on an initial draft of the policy document and I understand that, based on the development work to date, an initial draft is expected to be ready for my consideration by the end of summer.

See this speech in context