Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I checked all my emails when I came down here this evening from Belfast. I cannot find an email from the office of the Minister, or from anybody else, to say that the Minister wanted to defer the matter. I have been waiting weeks to have this matter taken. That decision is at the discretion of the Ceann Comhairle and I accept that. However, I find it totally unsatisfactory that when I eventually get what is a very important issue taken, I find that all I am going to get, with no disrespect to the Minister of State who is present, is a standard answer with no feedback. We changed the Standing Order so that a Deputy can get the Minister in if he or she believes it is an issue that needs to be addressed by the Minister. I ask the Acting Chairman to pass on to the Ceann Comhairle that I am very disappointed the Minister is not here, that I am dealing with the matter now under protest and that, on the next occasion, I expect to be treated in a courteous manner and in accordance with Standing Orders in respect of this matter.

The issue I wish to raise is a serious one. Under the LEADER programme before last, a LEADER company was delivering the programme in east Galway, another was delivering it in Connemara, including all the Gaeltacht, and a third, based on Inis Oírr, was delivering LEADER for all the offshore islands not connected to the mainland by a bridge or causeway. More than half the island population of the country live in County Galway. Under the most recent programme, everybody involved in LEADER in Galway was shocked by a high-handed decision that Galway would have only one LEADER company and one sub-regional group. That decision was opposed on the ground. Eventually, the LEADER programme was delivered by two companies, namely, Galway Rural Development in east Galway and Forum Connemara in Connemara. We lost the battle on the islands, however.

It is important to point out to the Minister that, geographically, Galway is the second-largest county. Not only that, one could almost say it is two counties geographically. A person cannot get from Connemara to the huge area east of Galway without going through another local authority area, that is, through the city, unless one takes a boat across the lake.

Connemara is cut off completely and the area from Ballinasloe to Clifden is 166 km long. Galway is also a very long county from north to south, stretching on the east side from Dunmore in the north right down to Gort and Portumna in the south, and on the west side, from Cornamona, where I live, and Cong in the north all the way down to south Connemara.

There was a huge protest the last time. The people there got the two companies but, amazingly, the Department has decided that this will be one subregional area again. I find this extraordinary. The Department has also told the islanders they will be part, and a very small subpart, of the county LEADER programme. This has a significant effect because the way the money is being divvied out is by subregional area. For example, Cork, has three such areas - south, north and west - while we have only one for this huge county. The way the money is divvied out is that €3 million goes to each subregional area. We claim that since we have two companies, we should be getting two allocations of €3 million and the rest should be divvied out on the basis of rurality, or density of population, and disadvantage, against which we have no argument.

We ask the Minister for Rural and Community Development, Deputy Humphreys, to reverse two decisions before it is too late. One is that she declares that Galway is now two subregional areas, one for Connemara, which is the way it will be delivered one way or the other. The companies and people have agreed that and everyone wants it. I ask, therefore, that we get it delivered that way and that we get the reinstatement of our island LEADER company.

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