Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Rural proofing is an approach to help ensure that the development of major policy initiatives are viewed through a rural lens to take full consideration of rural perspectives and issues. Rural proofing is not a policy or a model. Rather, it is a process to be undertaken that leads to better policies.

Last year, my Department published a body of research on rural proofing which is available online. Following this, and in order to help develop guidance material for use by policymakers and practitioners, a number of rural proofing pilots were undertaken across Government, on the national planning framework review, the development of the new sustainable tourism policy, the new national hubs strategy, and the new social enterprise strategy which was published in July.

To help complete our final report and in order to test our proposals, officials engaged with an OECD team of international experts in rural development in September. This was as part of the Department’s hosting of the OECD’s mission visit to review Irish rural policy, a study which was commissioned by the Department. I am happy to say that this has helped officials to refine proposals and I am advised that the intention is to shortly bring forward this report, and more importantly, guidance in relation to rural proofing and items such as the challenge of defining rural areas as an important first step in ensuring rural needs are taken account of; the availability of key statistics in relation to rural areas; the importance of meaningful and early consultation with rural communities as part of policy development; and how to ensure that rural issues are considered as a central part of policy development.

I am confident that this approach will serve as a practical and user-friendly tool for Government Departments to ensure that rural issues are fully taken account of in the development of major policy initiatives. To cut a long story short, the document will be published and available quite soon.

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