Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this matter. There are some positives, including that the population has increased in rural Ireland. The Department has the town and village renewal scheme and all the different things that have helped many communities; there is no denying that. The local improvement schemes have been a huge help as well and that has to be recognised. I live in rural Ireland. It is the best place in the world to live in. That message needs to go out.

We have difficulties, but the Department of Rural and Community Development is not responsible; it is other Departments that are not putting their shoulders to the wheel and doing what it is doing. In the Department of Transport, the budgets for roads around the country are in trouble. There is no point in saying that is not the case. We have the likes of the Galway outer bypass and we have the Sligo to Galway road. This is not us saying this but constituents will say that there seem to be more people thinking about going on a bike from Sligo to Galway than thinking they will go to work in Galway. That will not add up. In the context of rail, if we want to look at the climate, there are rail projects that could be done but they are left idle. We talk about them but nothing seems to be happening.

On agriculture, there is a reality here when we talk about rural Ireland. In the past three years, it has been impossible to get a licence to plant a tree, which is a damnable scenario. Second, there is uncertainty. A lot of rural Ireland is made up of agriculture and there is talk about culling 200,000 cows and about rewetting. We must remember that we are trying to encourage young farmers - and every politician does it - to take over the land. There is a good young farmers scheme there in fairness; I will not say there is not. However, the one thing we cannot do is have uncertainty day in, day out with a different story for a different day and a different headline on the newspaper that leaves the farmers not knowing whether to expand, go back, go sideways or go some other way. That is a major problem. The Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan, is seated beside the Minister. I am not blaming him, but we are caught up in red tape when Lough Funshinagh and other places throughout the country get flooded. That would make you pull your hair out, regardless of who is a Minister, because of EU legislation that has been imposed on us.

The Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine invited three Ministers and Ministers of State to come before it. They have refused to do so. The Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, and the Minister, Deputy McConalogue, refused to come before our committee because we wanted an update on the horticultural peat. We are happier now to bring it in from Latvia than we are to bring it in from Cavan or Monaghan, which is a damnable situation. The least they could do is come to the committee. It shows that democracy is finished when they have refused to come before our committee. The Ceann Comhairle can take a note of that.

The scheme relating to derelict houses has been great. It is getting a lot of people to work on their houses, but a few things need to be ironed out. If houses are not located on council roads, people have been refused the grant. That is a problem. There might be bad walls in a house and you might want to put new blocks in. A house is a house. If you want to demolish it and rebuild, they will not give you the grant either.

That needs to be sorted out. There are rural sewerage schemes in towns and villages. To be fair, it would take about 80 years to get through all the towns given the funding that is involved. However, I welcome it.

We welcome the likes of the broadband plan but we need to zip it up and get more guys in to get it done because the hubs the Minister has created are great. I heard the Minister, Deputy Harris, talk about it earlier. We need for youngsters to be able to go to hubs rather than colleges. That would be great.

Finally, there is planning. Youngsters and everyone around the country are sick of planning and of what is going on. We have the roads, the electricity and the sites. There should be help. It is wrong to block everyone.

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