Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The action plan was in Irish but the policy document was not in Irish on the day of the launch. The Irish version came much later. We got access to the action plan on the day.

In respect of implementation, will the Minister confirm when the monitoring body will be set up? She has confirmed there will be island representatives on that body.

I have already said, "Well done". The Minister kept her word in relation to the publication of the document. However, she will forgive me for my scepticism. I tabled a motion in 2019 on the basis of an absence of a policy for the islands despite a 1996 interdepartmental working committee recommendation that a policy was required urgently. Here we are getting a policy 27 years later. Forgive me but in a lot of it, tá athchúrsáil i gceist. There is a lot of recycling of existing policies, which I understand because it is an overall Government strategy. However, I am still extremely concerned about the failure to recognise the difficult situation in which islanders find themselves.

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