Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Dáil for facilitating this debate. I am proud to be a member of the Fine Gael Party that established the Department of Rural and Community Development. It is a Department that has become known to communities, community organisations, local authorities and small businesses across the country as a "can do" Department. Initially under the leadership of the former Minister, Deputy Ring, and under now the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, working with the Minister of State, Deputy O'Brien, this is a Department that is continuing to deliver for communities across the country. I see it in my own county of Wicklow. I am not sure there have ever been as many opportunities for local towns, villages and organisations to apply for funding and there is such a sense of partnership between Government, the Department and local communities.

Just today I have come back from Athlone, which I visited with the Minister. We launched a new initiative on higher education and remote working hubs. People who live in rural Ireland and who, for whatever reason, may not be able to get to a university physically - perhaps they are a mature learner, holding down a full-time job or caring for someone - still have as much of a right to access third level education as anybody else. It is about ensuring we can use the remote working hubs as learning hubs. There are two new programmes rolled out by the Technological University of the Shannon: Midlands Midwest, TUS, specifically aimed at making sure people in Laois, Offaly, Westmeath and Longford can now avail of these courses. It is a good and innovative step forward. We then went on to the TUS midlands campus, where we have doubled the capacity for apprentices. To Deputy Boyd Barrett's point, this ensures rural Ireland remains a vibrant place where people can get an education, a job, a skill and continue to live. We are doubling the capacity for people to become electrical and plumbing apprentices.

It is reflective of so much of the work my Department is trying to do to ensure learning, upskilling and reskilling can be accessed in any place, at any stage in life, no matter where a person lives. One of the key actions this year in our work plan is to provide long-term State support for the construction of student accommodation to make sure young people have an opportunity to come to rural Ireland and regional Ireland and access a university education there. In the Our Rural Future work plan we are committed to rolling out the further education model to facilitate community-based learning excellence across the region. It is not the responsibility of any single Department to deliver for rural Ireland and each and every one of us has a role to play. In my Department we have brought education to every part of the country. We have taken 12 institutes of technology and delivered five technological universities. These are universities of scale and ambition. We have torn up the outdated concept that if people wanted a university education they had to head to the big city. We continue to support the institutions in the cities, but people should be able to access a university education in Killybegs, as they now can, as well as in Athlone, Thurles, Ennis, Wexford, Castlebar and Sligo. Those are just some examples of what the technological universities have done to bring education into the regions as well. We have matched that with significant investment as well.

On apprenticeships, this year we will roll out our first farming apprenticeships. Four will be rolled out during the course of this calendar year. On the issue of farming, and given the research and innovation remit of my Department, we must not lecture farmers when it comes to climate. Nobody understands climate better than the farmer, by the way. We must help incentivise them by finding financial supports for them, but also by using research and innovation to help them come up with new and innovative ways to farm that we financially support. Through Science Foundation Ireland, SFI, which is one of my agencies, we are now working with the farming community to look at how it can innovate, change and how we can financially support farmers to do that as well.

I praise all the State agencies that are working so hard in my constituency, whether it is the community centres initiative, the town and village renewal supports, capital grants or rural tourism like at Avondale, where we have seen Coillte and Fáilte Ireland team up as well. Never before have there been so many funding pathways available to communities to ensure rural Ireland changes, because Ireland is changing, but also remains a vibrant place now and into the future. I remain committed, through the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, to supporting the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, and the Minister of State, Deputy O'Brien, in the delivery of Our Rural Future.

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