Martin Daly (Roscommon-Galway, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the commendable year-on-year investment by the Government in rural towns and villages, both under the CLÁR scheme, as the Taoiseach pointed out, and the RRDF scheme. One of the challenges that remains is that we need to retain our people in our villages. Some 30 or 40 years ago, people were emigrating because of a lack of employment. Now young people want to come back to our villages to live in them but there is a problem with the inconsistency regarding planning and infrastructure such as wastewater treatment plants to allow small towns and villages to grow. I welcome the investment by Uisce Éireann in a new wastewater treatment plant in Ballygar, my town, but there are many small towns and villages that just cannot grow because they do not have serviced sites and because of an inconsistency among the authorities with regard to planning. In this regard, I specifically mention Roscommon–Galway.

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