Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

What I will say will be not be a surprise to the Minister. I thank her for her statement. Many of the things I will outline cut across into the responsibility of other Departments. Like the Minister, I served on a county council, Mayo County Council. The Minister served on her county council. I always used to make the point that we need to get our core stuff right. We need to get the bread and butter issues right and we are not getting them right. I will set it in context because it is often said that Sinn Féín is saying something or running down rural Ireland. I will give two sets of statistics that prove the Government is not getting things right in rural Ireland. The first is the data recently released by the EU as part of the EU regional competitiveness index which shows the severity of the infrastructure deficit in the west and north west. Of the 234 designated regions across the whole EU, the north-west region of Ireland ranks 218th for infrastructure. That places the region in the bottom 7%, alongside some of the poorest regions in the EU. That is not Sinn Féin saying it. Those are credible statistics that have been analysed.

According to the Central Statistics Office, CSO, and we often go by CSO figures, the income gap between the northern and western regions and the State average has progressively widened in the past decade with a difference in disposable income per person increasing from slightly more than €1,400 in 2011 - when Fine Gael came into Government - to almost €4,000 in 2021. That is extremely worrying. Ministers say we have nothing to complain about. I want us to look at this together, as people who care about rural Ireland. I know the Minister does. She spoke about her area and I am glad that it can field football teams and so forth. However, we counted 17 young people who emigrated to Australia from the villages around me in recent times. It is happening. We cannot ignore this.

I will raise another issue that is not directly related. Everyone is entitled to water. I know the Minister will agree. It is one of the most basic things. Irish Water is not doing its job on group water schemes, especially those with debt. We requested that 14 group water schemes that have debt be taken over.

Debt has been incurred where there have been huge leaks and so on, so that debt is there and it is not going anywhere. I want the Minister and her Department to ask Irish Water about this or to make a demand on it.

I know Irish Water is a private company that is limited by shares, which I cannot fathom, but can the Minister instruct it or get the relevant Minister to instruct it to look at the rural water schemes to ensure that people in rural Ireland have water? I mention a scheme that has looked to be taken over for months and years, Pullathomas water scheme. The people in that area have no water. Irish Water states it is not its responsibility because it is a private body and Mayo County Council states it not its problem or issue. I commend Mayo County Council on the good work it has done but it states it is not its issue because it is up to Irish Water. It comes back to volunteers and, as I told Irish Water would happen, the volunteers on the scheme have all resigned. Yet they are being told by Government they are still responsible, so they are not allowed to resign as they are responsible for their neighbours' water. We must provide simple things like water, roads and flood relief as a matter of human rights. We are waiting on the Crossmolina flood relief scheme for months and years. We have been waiting for months for the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform to sign off on it to let that flood relief scheme go ahead.

Some of my colleagues talked about other things like the western rail corridor and the infrastructure we need. It is quite alarming when we have the Minister for Transport, Deputy Eamon Ryan, going down to Sligo to say the N17 Knock to Collooney scheme has no funding available. That is completely contradictory to what the Minister is saying about the funding being there. One Minister is telling one story and the next Minister is saying something completely contradictory. The people in rural Ireland deserve more than this. I will not even mention the pyrite scheme and the people who have a deficit of €116,000 in trying to avail of the scheme; the people who are locked out of this as it is. I ask the Minister that there be collective responsibility across Government for the future of rural Ireland.

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