Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

First of all, I recognise the significant achievement of the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, in redressing the rural imbalance. The Minister has fought hard at the Cabinet table to have a budget and she has made a vast amount of money available for different projects in rural areas.

I suppose we are never satisfied as public representatives. My county is a rural county and we have a significant number of Ukrainian refugees and asylum seekers coming to our county. For example, Roscrea, a town where the schools have DEIS status and there are many challenges, already has an asylum centre. There was an announcement last week - the announcement was drip fed to the community as well which is not a satisfactory way to do it - that they are getting 402 Ukrainian refugees in the next couple of months. For this to succeed and work in the community, there has to be significant investment. We had the allocation of grants a couple of weeks ago for communities with Ukrainian refugees but this effort has to be increased and redoubled. I refer to GP services and educational services. With this amount of people coming in, it will put huge pressure on a structure that is already under pressure. In rural areas, we find it extremely difficult to get new GPs. People find it difficult to get access to GPs. When the Minister brings in this amount of extra families into a rural town, it will need extra resources. The communities of such towns want reassurances that those resources will be provided. We all want to see Ukrainians settling in our communities and, hopefully, start to work in those communities and have the services that they deserve but the local communities have to get their reassurances as well. As for the educational system, that number of young children coming into those schools in September will put very significant extra pressure on the schools in that town. We have other villages and towns around County Tipperary in the same situation. Dundrum, which is a handy-sized village, has a very significant amount of refugees as well. That rural village needs the resources to be able to cater for these people.

The other point I want to make in the short time available to me is about the infrastructure that we need for housing in villages.

Waste treatment plants are non-existent in an awful lot of villages. In others, the capacity is far too low. For these villages to have any housing development, waste treatment plants will have to be either installed or greatly improved. If a village is to thrive, a new housing development is the key. It will keep the school alive, the shop open and so on. Housing is the lifeblood of any rural village. In my county, more than 60 villages do not have waste treatment plants. That has to change. There was a report earlier regarding water quality in this country. While fingers will be pointed at various sectors, waste treatment plants are non-existent in some cases. In others, the capacity is not nearly adequate enough. We need significant investment in this area. We all want villages to thrive. New houses are key to that, but the infrastructure they need must be put in place.

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