Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I heard the Minister's opening speech and I had to pinch myself as the rural Ireland I live in is totally different from the one the she spoke about. Yes, there are a few green shoots but they are few. Funding for west Cork has been little and spread well apart.

Our roads in west Cork are totally under-funded. Two bypasses in Bandon lie undone for decades. A bypass of Inishannon and Bantry lies undone. Not alone are these bypasses not being built, the main roads are starved for funding to be repaired. Rural living must include farmers and fisheries and the Government has attacked both of these activities in every way it can. If it carries on what it is doing with the culling of cows, it is set to wreck rural Ireland. Planning permission for our young people is a no-go in west Cork. It does little good for the Minister to mention it in her speech when her Government is ensuring that young people do not get planning in their local areas for one reason or another due to Government planning policies. Roads are not the only disaster we have in west Cork.

Last Monday night, I was at a meeting in Shannonvale, near Clonakilty, where there is raw sewage in the community garden that was donated to the community. It is also making its way down to the main water scheme in Clonakilty. A new sewerage scheme is desperately needed there. The Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, visited last year and it was on a list last year. It is not on any list this year. The community finds itself in an astonishing situation. West Cork is sick of Ministers and leaders of parties coming down, waving and blowing kisses but delivering nothing. Last year, we had Deputy Leo Varadkar come to my local villages of Goleen and Schull. In the first village he stood in, pictures were taken of him outside a post office that was closed three weeks previously and will never open again. The next place he arrived was the harbour in Schull. It is a fantastic, beautiful place. What did he do? He took more photos. That is the place for which a fabulous rural regeneration project was refused by the Fine Gael Government even though the committee was brought upstairs in the Dáil and promises were made. I accept that was before the Minister's time. A week later, a struggling Fine Gael Deputy's constituency got the money instead.

We have a serious number of issues in rural Ireland that need to be looked at. The All-Island Research Observatory, AIRO, report, which was an independent report, proved that in County Cork. Also, I hear that the IDA is selling the business park it had in Skibbereen. That is a scandalous situation. It is as good as saying to us, it is wiping its hands clean of any jobs being given to the people of Skibbereen, Bantry and the rest of west Cork.

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