Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The document we are speaking about here is heavy on ambition, but unfortunately it lacks detailed timelines and some aspects of it appear to ignore key elements of what a rural community needs. Listening to some of the Government Members sitting across from me, I wonder if we are living in the same country at all. To give the Minister credit, there are areas that have benefitted, but there are large sections of rural Ireland that have been totally ignored under this Government and previous governments. While the Minister can list out all the areas that have been developed and the whole thing, let us get real and tell the Minister something the Government does not do. Take health, for example. A significant focus is placed on primary care in the document, and rightly so. Unfortunately, the experience of many communities in my county of Tipperary is that it can come at the expense of other services, and there is often a price to pay. The people of Carrick-on-Suir and Roscrea will attest to this. While I will not go into detail here, I will say that in my experience care in the community has been used at times to actually remove care settings from communities in favour of administration blocks and offices and so on. The care aspect is often farmed out to private operators in the community, while the State services are centralised to areas of higher population density. For families with loved ones in need of certain services like palliative care and so on, this is problematic. It is an unacceptable way of using the term "community care".

Moving on to housing, of course, the Government's track record is dreadfully poor. The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage's own homelessness data confirm the upward trend that has been realised in rural Ireland, with Tipperary being no exception. I want to focus on access to housing and how this is sitting uncomfortably with the action 45 policy measure, which states, "Through the National Disability Inclusion Strategy, develop initiatives to improve employment opportunities for people with disabilities living in rural areas, including through remote working options." This is a laudable aim, but getting people into employment can, for many, be dependent on accessing suitable housing that is close to workplaces and to the services they need. This is not addressed by the Government in any meaningful way. For example, there is a family in my constituency that has been served with a notice to quit. They have a child with special needs. They need a suitable house in a location that is easily accessed by the services the child needs. That family is battling to get such a home. The council is trying to assist, but it is an uphill struggle. When we talk about initiatives to improve opportunities for people with disabilities living in our rural areas, we need to put the focus on the essentials as well, including a place to live that enables access to services, employment and what they actually need.

The policy measure set out in action 66 is to, "Review the situation in relation to water services for towns and villages that are not currently on the Irish Water network." There are far too many estates in this country that are living in limbo because of the complexity of the taking-in-charge process. This is having its own impact on the availability of rural housing in Ireland. While I acknowledge that some work has been done here, I believe Uisce Éireann needs to address its responsibilities in relation to this issue. This needs the intervention of the Minister to insist that the work be done as soon as possible.

I also want to talk about roads infrastructure. Those in this Chamber will recall that the issue of the bypass in Tipperary town is raised here frequently. I will raise it again. I also raise the wider issue of the funding for the N24 project and how the funding for upcoming phases can be withheld until public and political pressure gets to a point that it can be addressed.

This is no way to treat rural communities. We need adequate infrastructure corridors which take traffic off the streets of congested towns like Tipperary and link in a more direct way one part of the country with another.

Recently we had a shortfall in funding for the Cahir to Limerick Junction bypass, part of the N24 project. Before that, we had the planned postponement of the N24 Waterford to Cahir project. Communities are expected to beg for appropriate funding which is unacceptable. Then we hear that the Department of Transport has underspent its capital budget by almost €100 million in the first quarter of this year. If connecting rural Ireland is high on the Government’s agenda, we really need to know exactly what are the priorities of this Government and whose influence is causing such inconsistency in approach.

On the sustainability of agriculture, marine and forestry, action 128 in the Government’s plan commits it to publishing a successor forestry programme to deliver an ambitious afforestation plan to achieve an afforestation target of 8,000 ha a year. We are now six months into what would be a forestry programme if the Government had engaged with the EU on the issue of state aid approval ahead when the programme should have come into effect. Instead, a mere seven afforestation licences have been issued this year. The industry and the Government’s targets are being left in limbo. A sector which had not been served well prior to this now feels abandoned and our annual target of 8,000 ha a year is further away than ever.

I urge this Government to put specific timelines to the ambitions in this document and engage with the sectors for whom this document falls well short.

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