Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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50. To ask the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the amount of new money that will be used to fund the Action Plan for Rural Development. [4173/17]

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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This question refers to new money in the rural development plan. The Minister of State, Deputy Ring, did a great job in impersonating an Opposition Deputy when he told us what the Department needed to fix the problems. He has correctly identified what we need. The only thing he did not identify were the funds required. Over the past eight years we have had an investment famine in this country. Ireland is second from the bottom in Europe with regard to infrastructural investment. That is why there has been a corrosion in the infrastructure or rural Ireland. This question seeks to find out what the Minister will do to address the infrastructural famine in terms of real investment.

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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This is the first plan of its kind to take a cohesive and co-ordinated approach across the whole of Government to economic and rural development. Over the three-year period of the action plan for rural development, the Government will invest a significant level of funding in programmes which will support rural Ireland. Many of the funding components are new, or have only been announced in recent weeks, in anticipation of the action plan being published.

Examples of new investments include up to €60 million over the next three years to rejuvenate over 600 rural towns and villages; a doubling of funding for flood risk schemes to €100 million per annum by 2021; €6 million for investment in the development of blueways; €10 million will be invested in our national parks and nature reserves; and a €10 million, or 50%, increase in funding under the SEAI’s better energy communities programme, which will total €30 million for 2017. Other important measures in the action plan include the recruitment of 3,200 new gardaí over the next four years; the introduction of a new community CCTV grant scheme; significant investment in the seniors alert scheme; and the provision of 50,000 apprenticeships nationwide by 2020. The details of funding for these, and other new initiatives, will be a matter for the relevant Minister.

As far as my Department is concerned, funding for regional and rural programmes has increased from a figure of €61.2 million in 2016 to €79.2 million in 2017, an increase of 29%. It is important to bear in mind, however, that many of the commitments in the action plan involve new policy initiatives which will not necessarily require additional funding to have a positive impact, for example the development of a new and effective framework for rural-proofing Government policies or the development, for the first time, of a national policy on social enterprise.

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These new measures will complement existing programmes which are referenced in the action plan, such as the €4 billion rural development programme 2014-2020 or the €275 million initial allocation to the national broadband plan. These programmes are referenced in the action plan because they will clearly play an important part in the Government’s approach to rural development.

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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The great lie that this Government has managed to spin over the past number of years is that the economic crisis is over. The truth is that the economic crisis has been rolled into a 40 year debt. Every year this State spends about €7 billion just to service the interest on that debt, a situation which will continue until about 2050. That €7 billion invisibly robs this generation and the next of the ability to invest in the infrastructure we need.

It seems that the Minister is seeking to be the Minister for the loaves and the fishes because she is spreading €60 million around 600 towns and villages. The Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport said secondary roads alone need €3 billion to bring them up to the required standard. We can contrast the €6 billion that is necessary with the €60 million that is so-called new money. It is not new money, rather it was press-released to death in the budget a number of months ago. This is money that has already been declared. I ask the Minister to identify the necessary funds to take this issue seriously.

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The €60 million for investment in towns and villages to which the Deputy referred is only one aspect of this plan. There are many other aspects to it and billions of euro are being invested in rural Ireland. The Deputy referred to roads and infrastructure. They are a matter for the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport. There are commitments in the plan regarding rural and regional roads. Other programs such as Leader and CAP are included in the plan. They provide vital support for rural communities and, in particular, areas outside our towns and villages. We have to include schemes that support rural development in an action plan for rural development. Some announcements may already have been made.

This is a co-ordinated approach to rural Ireland. We had consultation and the CEDRA report. This is for what we have been asked, namely, a cohesive plan for rural Ireland and that we all work together. The 2016 commemorations were very successful because everybody worked together and it was a plan in which communities could get involved. That is what made it the success it was. This is the same.

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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I agree that the 1916 commemorations were successful. They got off to a jittery start, it is fair to say, and the Opposition made a good job of putting a light on the Government to pull up its socks.

The Minister cannot say roads are a matter for the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport while at the same time stating the report is a whole-of-Government report. We are able to criticise some elements but not others.

The Minister said there is a long list of actions in the report but many are reheated or aspirational actions with no funding or anchor with regard to performance indicators. Many are fluff, to be honest. Some of the statements could be filed under different categories. The report could contain statements such as "The Minister will engage with people in an effort to see if, where possible, to look into a discussion leading to prepare a plan that would endeavour to set up a committee to commission a report to do something in the future".

In our pre-budget submission, Sinn Féin identified €1.2 billion of new money for infrastructural spend, compared to the €300 million that Fine Gael identified. We did this under exactly the same European fiscal rules structures. It is possible, if one has the ambition, determination and ideology, to get the money necessary to fix the problem. Where will the money come from?

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Last week, the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Ross, announced a 9% increase in the allocation for local and regional roads. The Minister of State at that Department, Deputy Patrick O'Donovan, opened the sports capital programme with €30 million are available nationwide. The Deputy will, as do I, appreciate the significance of the sports capital programme to local clubs across the country.

The Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Leo Varadkar, allocated an additional 500 places for the rural social scheme.

There is a lot in that but what is also important is that I will be monitoring the monthly progress on this report and a six-monthly report will be made available to the public for everyone to see what has been achieved and measure the progress to date. There is also the Cabinet committee that is chaired by the Taoiseach, so every Minister will be held to account. It is not a matter of setting out the actions and nothing happening. The Action Plan for Jobs was a very successful plan and I hope that this plan will be even more successful.