Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

This Bill seeks to ensure that regard be had by public bodies to the desirability of reducing socioeconomic and other inequalities suffered by those in rural Ireland, to provide for the carrying out of rural impact assessments in respect of measures that are likely to have a significant socioeconomic impact or effect on rural Ireland and to provide for related matters. It is designed to ensure that the decline of rural Ireland cannot continue unabated and that any measure undertaken by a public body will have to be vetted to ensure it does not discriminate against rural areas. The programme for Government states, and it is mentioned in the Government's amendment to the Bill, that the Action Plan for Rural Development takes a whole-of-Government approach to "Develop a new and effective rural proofing model which would ensure that rural development issues are considered in the decision-making processes of all Government Departments". That is the intent behind the Bill.

The Taoiseach and the Minister for Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Deputy Humphreys, tell us how much they care about rural communities, how the recovery is going and how things are progressing. The lip-service might be very good but there is little action on the ground. Many Deputies talk about Ireland in a post-boom context, but the so-called Celtic tiger never stalked the rural land of this nation or roared in the hills and valleys of the parts of the island far removed from the big cities. A prime example of the problem is the latest proposal from the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Deputy Denis Naughten, to roll out rural broadband. Nobody in country areas believes that broadband will be delivered. They simply do not believe it because of the failures and repeated broken promises of the past. The latest proposal allows the commercial service providers to cherry-pick the most desirable, accessible and thus the most profitable areas of the country to provide a service. For the rest of us, it is a case of "live horse and you'll get grass". That is the reality for most people in rural Ireland.

The rural school bus service is another example. The rule introduced to provide that school bus services are to the nearest school totally disrupted a system that was working fine. It denied bus services to children all over the country. People in the Department have told me that they did not anticipate the effects this would have on rural schools and rural areas. Some children in families get the bus and others are refused because of the poorly devised rules. That is the reality for families living in rural Ireland.

Another example is the ambulance service. In many rural areas the service is scant, if it is there at all. In addition, the time an ambulance has to get to an accident or incident is well outside the 19 minute target. For many it is an hour at best due to the location of the ambulance centres and the bad roads the ambulances must travel. As a result, some people with medical conditions have moved to bigger towns to be close to hospitals. That is the reality for sick people living in rural Ireland. The decision to remove cancer services from Sligo has had an impact on thousands of families. For years they have been travelling to Galway from across the north west, over long distances and on poor roads, in order to attend appointments. This health policy decision took no account of the trauma and distress its implementation would have on people living a long distance from Galway in rural areas with already poor medical services and infrastructure. The Bill would force such a policy change to be assessed against the impact it would have on people living in rural Ireland.

The Government's proposed amendment seeks to block the Bill and revert to the status quo. The status quois simply not working, as can be seen with the continual withdrawal of services, as well as post offices, hospitals and so forth. The complaint in the Government's amendment regarding the implications it would for a money Bill is quite strange, as my proposal is to monitor the impact of existing budgets on rural areas. There was no boom in many rural areas except in property prices, which brought its own legacy of misery to many parts of the country and certainly to my native County Leitrim, which had the distinction of having more ghost estates than any other county in proportion to its size and population. It is ironic to hear people in Fianna Fáil, the overseers of the building boom, talk about Government inaction on rural Ireland. I hope the Fianna Fáil Deputies will support this Bill to ensure that the neglect they complain about so eloquently can be halted for once and for all.

Yesterday, I attended the meeting of the transport committee where representatives of chambers of commerce from across the midlands and the west lobbied to have the N4 and N5 roads upgraded to motorways. The economy in that region is suffering and potential is being lost due to the disadvantage of single lane roads on these national routes. Parts of them are very dangerous. The road between Castlebaldwin and Collooney features dozens of white crosses to represent the road deaths on that stretch of narrow road. That is the reality.

Another issue is the work activation schemes that are brought forward by the Government. They do not take account of people living in rural areas who have to travel long distances and the costs involved in that. The JobPath programme, which already has many problems, is a typical example. People in rural areas are expected to travel three and four times a week to JobPath centres and get no expenses for doing so. If they do not turn up, their benefits are cut. It is a process that simply does not work for people living in rural Ireland.

Rural areas have been ignored for long enough. It is time to deal with this issue. During the boom, work in agriculture was regarded as a Cinderella option. It was the last option for many people when things were good. Young people left rural areas to seek high technology jobs in cities or abroad. There are very few such jobs for graduates in rural areas because businesses do not have the infrastructure to locate outside the big cities. The farming community has seen the cycle of boom and bust previously and is experienced, over generations of resilience on the land, in persevering through tough times and coming out the other side.

The policy of afforestation in rural Ireland is destroying rural communities because when large tracts of land are planted it is a permanent change of land use which requires no labour input bar a week or two every few years. With no work involved, communities die.

The farming community is fighting the closure of veterinary laboratories in Sligo, Kilkenny, Limerick and other areas. This is in the context of the Government talking about maintaining rural services. None of it makes sense, and that is why we are here today. Rural Ireland cannot be neglected until it turns into a theme park to be visited by tourists who can marvel at the greatness of old Ireland. Rural Ireland is not an area that can be covered by forestry in order to provide some kind of green lung for western Europe. Rural Ireland is a potentially rich and healthy environment in which to live and raise children and make a living. That is what we need to see happen.

Our agrifood sector is still the backbone of the economy, even with the lack of support which should by now have made it a foundation on which to build a vibrant and thriving rural economy. Rural Ireland is not just about farmers. The social fabric of Ireland is still tightly woven around agriculture and its auxiliary activities. People who live in rural areas, even if they are not engaged in farming, like to live near where farming is taking place around them. It is part of what we are in a real and present sense. This is the lifestyle that most of us know or are just one generation removed from.

That is not to say we are romanticising the hard graft and hardship that goes along with life in farming, the land or working with livestock. Country people are far from romantic when dealing with the realities of their lives. They and I know, as does the Government, that without the necessary infrastructure, technology, investment and transport given the decline in its population poverty will increase all over rural Ireland.

The Government is not supporting rural Ireland. Instead, it is eroding the infrastructure, services and commerce which existed in the past. It goes against every tenet of progressive and environmental policy in a world running out of fossil fuels to cut back on public transport. That is happening everywhere. Such a policy forces everyone who needs mobility to work or study to own a car.

The closure of post offices, small rural schools, Garda stations and libraries and the withdrawal of public services and transport are the death knell for some areas. These are the kind of measures that the Rural Equality Bill will ensure could not happen without proper scrutiny of the effects and the justification of its implications in all rural areas. We want to ensure any policy that comes from any Department is rural-proofed to ensure rural Ireland does not suffer as a result. It is not about adding extra costs. Rather, it is simply ensuring that there is scrutiny.

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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I move amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after “That” and substitute the following:“Dáil Éireann, while recognising that rural proofing and equality are important issues to ensure the development of rural areas, declines to give the Rural Equality Bill 2017 a second reading for the following reasons:

(a) the proposals in the Bill would require rural impact assessments to be carried out on all enactments, including Money Bills, this would have implications, in particular, for the Finance Bill, and could have serious implications for the timely passing of legislation to give effect to the annual Budget;

(b) the proposed Bill, as presented, has significant drafting flaws in relation to definitions and level of ambition;

(c) the proposed Bill will create difficulties in relation to the scope of its application and in relation to the administrative burden it will create as there are a significant number of public bodies for which a rural impact scheme is not relevant or material because of the nature of their work (e.g. Irish Film Classification Office), or their limited geographical remit (e.g. Dublin Docklands Development Authority);

(d) the Action Plan for Rural Development, which takes a whole-of-Government approach to both the economic and social development of rural Ireland, includes a commitment to

‘develop a new and effective rural proofing model which would ensure that rural development issues are considered in the decision-making processes of all Government Departments, State bodies and agencies.’; and

(e) the Minister for Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs proposes that, in delivering the commitment in the Action Plan, the Oireachtas Committee on Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs should examine the issue and recommend whether rural proofing would be best achieved by non-legislative actions or by legislative actions, or a mixture of both, and present a report to Dáil Éireann on the matter.”

I welcome Deputy Kenny's interest and initiative in bringing this matter before the House. We all want a better deal for rural Ireland and to ensure rural issues are to the forefront of policy-making. The Government is making a concerted effort to make this a reality through more co-ordinated policy-making for rural Ireland and the establishment of a Cabinet Minister with responsibility for rural affairs.

The Government is supporting rural Ireland and I want to outline a number of things that have happened recently. I launched the €20 million town and village renewal scheme. The Minister of State, Deputy Michael Ring, launched the CLÁR and rural recreation programmes. Those schemes will provide a vital support to rural communities right across the country. In February, I announced the successful applications under the arts and culture capital scheme, which was the largest investment in our regional arts facilities in a decade with over 85% of the funding going to protect projects outside of Dublin.

We are investing in rural Ireland right across Government. The Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Shane Ross, increase the budget for local and regional roads by 9% this year. The Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Leo Varadkar, has provided an additional 500 places on the rural social scheme. I met the Minister of State, Deputy Seán Canney, today. He is investing €430 million in flood relief measures right across the country between now and 2021.

The Minister for Justice and Equality has introduced a new grant scheme to help communities to provide CCTV systems, which will help to combat rural crime. We have an ambitious target to create 135,000 jobs outside of Dublin between now and 2020. The unemployment figures released yesterday show that the unemployment rate now stands at 6.2%, down from a peak of over 15.2%, which is very encouraging. Those jobs are being created in all regions. There is a lot to be positive about when it comes to rural Ireland. We need to move away from the constant narrative that rural Ireland is dying on its feet because that does a disservice to all of those people who are proud to live in our rural communities. Rural Ireland is resilient and fighting back.

Deputy Kenny mentioned broadband. The recent announcement from the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Deputy Denis Naughten, on the agreement with Eir means that 300,000 more premises, most of which are located in rural Ireland, will have access to high speed quality broadband within the next 90 weeks.

A lot of things are happening in rural Ireland. Rural-proofing of Government policy is a key commitment in A Programme for a Partnership Government and the Government's Action Plan for Rural Development. I have no doubt about the good intentions behind the Bill, but the fact is that it is flawed in many respects.

The Bill provides for the preparation of rural impact schemes by public bodies. These schemes would set out the arrangements to be put in place by public bodies for assessing and consulting on the likely socioeconomic impact of measures introduced by them in rural Ireland. The Bill also provides for the monitoring of such impacts, the publication of results in regard to this monitoring process, the training of staff and ensuring public access to information and services provided by the public body.

The Bill, in essence, wants public policy makers to ensure that issues affecting rural Ireland are considered in full before any policy or initiative is agreed nationally and locally. For a number of reasons I believe this will, in fact, create the opposite effect and will, by the nature of the various provisions set out in the Bill, impose such a burden on public bodies that it will in effect lead to public bodies engaging in a box-ticking exercise. Rural Ireland would be seen as an encumbrance, an administrative shackle and something to mitigate against, not as the vibrant economic force it has the potential to be.

The scope envisaged by the Bill is so wide that it envisages that assessment will be carried out in respect of any enactment, executive or other decision, determination or policy of a public body and it would seem it is intended to apply to all public bodies regardless of their function. This is simply not practical. It would, in effect, bring policy-making and decision-making at all levels to a halt.

The Bill specifically states that enactments in a money Bill would also be covered by its provisions, thereby applying it to enactments such as a finance Bill. This could have serious implications for the timely passing of legislation to give effect to the annual budget. It would also be unreasonable to apply a rural impact assessment to legislation or policy which has no bearing on rural communities such as legislation governing purely technical matters. It would be a waste of time and resources.

The Bill, as drafted, can be interpreted as requiring all public bodies to prepare a rural impact scheme. However, there are likely to be a significant number of public bodies for which such a scheme is not relevant or material because of the nature of their work or geographical remit. Why would we seek to impose this on bodies and agencies when we will not see any real benefits for rural Ireland?

I referred to the administrative burden that this Bill would impose on policy-makers at national and local level. I accept the need for better rural-proofing of policies across national and local government systems, but putting in place a statutory requirement to rural-proof every measure of every single body, as foreseen in the Bill, is like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. It will impose a set of obligations on policy-makers across the public service which will have little or no meaning to many.

We have to accept the likelihood that every policy and enactment would claim to be rural friendly, without us necessarily seeing a genuine advancement in or engagement with rural progress. Those policies that genuinely need to be considered more closely in the context of rural impacts will be lost in a sea of meaningless administration.

6 o’clock

I also have concerns about the Bill from a legal perspective in that it suffers from a number of technical and administrative flaws. For example, it envisages the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine as the responsible Minister. While we all acknowledge the vital importance of the agriculture sector to the rural economy, rural Ireland does not stop at the farm gate. Indeed, that is a point that was reiterated to me on a number of occasions during our consultations on the Action Plan for Rural Development. What we all want is for rural Ireland to be treated fairly in decision making locally and nationally but what we need is genuine and meaningful engagement on rural issues with policy makers at both national and local level. We need to work collaboratively with people to get the best results. We do not want to be in the position of dictating a one-size-fits-all approach. We do not need an overly complicated and burdensome set of legislative proposals which will have us all tied up in administrative knots for the foreseeable future with no real or tangible benefit for rural Ireland. We need a flexible, common-sense approach.

I accept fully that the current arrangements for rural-proofing of public policies and legislation could be improved. The Government's Action Plan for Rural Development, "Realising our Rural Potential", which I launched earlier this year, takes a whole-of-Government approach to both the economic and social development of rural communities across Ireland. The Action Plan includes a firm commitment by my Department to develop a rural-proofing model by the end of this year. However, we need to look at all the options open to us. It is premature to go straight down the legislative route before examining all the ways and means by which we can bring about improvements to the current arrangements. The rural-proofing model will be developed through consultation with key experts in rural development. My officials have already begun examining the various examples of rural proofing that are currently operational in other jurisdictions and how we might best develop our own model. I am determined that whatever model we ultimately develop, rural-proofing should start at the earliest possible stage of policy development. It should also apply only to those bodies where such proofing is relevant and where it will lead to real impacts in rural communities. The model needs to be flexible, practical and, above all, effective. It should allow relevant bodies, agencies and Departments to engage in a meaningful way with policies and initiatives that impact on rural Ireland.

I am proposing today that the Joint Committee on Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs be part of this process. It would be very helpful if the committee could examine the issue and recommend whether rural-proofing would be best achieved by non-legislative actions, by more targeted legislative actions or by a mixture of both. A report on the matter could then be presented to the Dáil. In its submission to the consultation process on the Action Plan for Rural Development, the joint committee expressed concern that rural-proofing requirements could be at risk of becoming a box-ticking exercise. As such, I hope the joint committee will share my view that it is in all of our interests to take a more detailed look at the various options open to us to achieve the maximum benefit for rural communities.

I am convinced that this Bill would not have the desired effect of ensuring rural Ireland remains at the forefront of policy-making but would rather have the opposite effect. This legislation would lead to rural Ireland being seen as a problem to be overcome and a box to tick, which is something none of us wants to see. As I have said many times before, we must focus on the positives in rural Ireland. We must change the narrative and develop the potential of our rural communities to contribute to our economy and recognise them as part of our identity.

Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent)
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In its very Title, the Bill acknowledges that rural Ireland is on a lesser footing than urban Ireland. That said, it is a very positive starting point from which to focus on where the inequalities lie and, thereafter, how they can be addressed. I welcome the Rural Equality Bill, which proposes to look at the impact of all legislation which comes before the House in respect of the social and economic status of people in rural areas. As we know, there are currently huge inequalities between those living in rural and urban areas. The Bill seeks to address them.

The Rural Equality Bill attempts to ensure that the laws we pass in this Parliament give people in rural areas equal access to everything. First and foremost, a robust roads budget must be put in place to ensure there is a proper road network, including an annual repairs and maintenance programme. Effective mobile phone coverage throughout all rural areas is a matter that must be addressed. Nationally, high-speed broadband must be rolled out as a matter of priority if we are to bridge the blatant inequalities that exist between urban and rural Ireland. It would provide a level playing field for businesses which might be contemplating a move to rural Ireland. The Bill will rural-proof major Government policies and strategies by taking into account how rural communities are impacted upon by Government decisions and, where appropriate, ensuring that adjustments are made. The awareness that policy adjustments must be made for urban and rural areas to coexist and thrive will, hopefully, address the differences in rural and urban services and the need to make provision for both.

We must be aware that it is vital for rural communities to retain their small schools, shops, Garda stations, post offices, banks, community hospitals, rural transport and other vital services. I envisage that the Bill will look at ways to secure the future of these services and ensure the sustainability of rural communities. It is essential to give our fishing industry a high level of support as an important source of economic activity in remote coastal regions. Farmers are the backbone of rural communities and every measure should be taken to protect their futures, in particular those of farming families in disadvantaged areas on our islands and peninsulas. The lack of public transport in rural Ireland is an issue the Bill must address as a matter of urgency. Adequate public transport is particularly important for older people to ensure access to services and facilities and their engagement in social activities. Proper transport links would provide economic and social benefits.

A large percentage of our rural population does not live in towns or villages. People are dispersed in townlands, which means they have to travel long distances to the nearest hospitals. This is particularly evident in west Cork where Bantry General Hospital, the only remote rural hospital in Ireland, serves a population of 82,000 people, many of whom live on the three remote peninsulas and islands along the Cork coastline. In July 2013, as part of the reconfiguration of acute hospital services in Cork and Kerry, the casualty department of Bantry General Hospital was closed between the hours of 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. As a result, casualty patients have to travel long journeys of sometimes up to three hours by ambulance to Cork University Hospital, CUH. We are all aware of the overcrowding problem which continues to get worse in CUH. I propose that the Rural Equality Bill will encourage the Department of Health to review the reconfiguration plan and, perhaps, make suitable adjustments which mean the reopening of the casualty department at Bantry General Hospital.

The Commission for the Economic Development of Rural Areas, CEDRA, report of April 2014 recommends a series of actions by Government Departments to support the long-term sustainable development of rural Ireland. Along with the Action Plan for Rural Development, the report could form the blueprint for realising the potential of resources of our rural communities.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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I am delighted to speak on this important Bill. I compliment Deputy Martin Kenny on the work and research he has done in order to put down the legislation. I welcome the Minister to the House.

Deputy Michael Collins will be aware that in the long negotiations concluded this time 12 months ago, the Rural Independent Group insisted on a Minister for rural affairs. I do not want in any way to condescend to or disparage the Minister. She certainly understands rural Ireland but her portfolio was linked with arts, heritage, regional and Gaeltacht affairs. Rural affairs deserve a full Department of their own and would have it if we were serious about this. We thought the Taoiseach and Fine Gael were serious about it in the negotiations but it is obvious they were not. They merely stuck it on like a hind tit. I apologise for the expression but that is what it is. It is the poor relation.

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Women can multitask.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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I know. I am not saying a word to the Minister. She has the task and she is doing her best. I am saying that rural affairs deserved a full ministry. In rejecting Deputy Martin Kenny's Bill, the Minister is the one who introduced topics to the discussion, including with regard to public bodies engaging in box-ticking exercises. She also stated that rural Ireland does not stop at the farm gate. We all know that. We do not need lecture on that. Perhaps some of the Deputies who have never left the Pale might not know it. The farm gates are vital. Look at the pressure on agriculture. Look at the inspection rates. We have a huge issue with a lack of gardaí throughout the country. We have one garda for every 370 people. We have one agriculture inspector for every 39 people. Think of this: last night, people here said farmers are not regulated enough and that there are not enough farm visits. They are riddled with farm visits - they are terrorised. The Government also promised us that it would desist from unannounced inspections and at least give people some bit of notice that the inspectors are coming, particularly as 99.9% of farmers want to be compliant and want to protect the environment, heritage and everything else. There is a small minority and they must be rooted out. Nobody supports them.

I can list all of the issues, including rural roads, broadband, post offices, small schools and community hospitals, which I raised during a Topical Issue debate 30 minutes ago with Deputy Butler from Waterford about to step-down facilities in Dungarvan, County Waterford and Cashel. The beds were pulled without notice. The Minister for Health was annoyed that we were not notified. Nobody told us last Friday evening - the beginning of a bank holiday weekend - and they were moved on Monday morning. The number of beds and services are being cut but the Government tells us it wants to improve services.

Mobile phone coverage has become a pure disaster during the past 12 months. It has got worse and worse. With regard to public transport, when there were strikes in Dublin huge energy was put into fixing them, and rightly so. When Bus Éireann workers went on strike, what happened? They were left out. What happened at the depot in Clonmel, one of the biggest inland towns in the country? In the middle of the strike, the buses were removed from Clonmel and now we have no public bus services provided by Bus Éireann. There are only private contractors. Is this what the Government means by rural services and rural support? It would not happen in Dublin or anywhere else. At midnight on a Saturday night, the depot was closed down, buses were stood down and drivers were either moved to a depot at 20 miles away or further or else they were retired. The to-hell-or-to-Connacht approach still applies in many of these quangos, such as Bus Éireann, CIE and the HSE, over which Ministers have no control. They are playing havoc with rural Ireland.

We have a huge problem with IDA Ireland and I have it from the chief executive himself that it cannot get industries to locate outside Dublin, not even to the other cities. When I speak about rural-proofing, I mean everything below Newlands Cross on the other side of the M50. IDA Ireland cannot get companies to go to Limerick, Cork or even Galway, which is a difficulty. I am not blaming anyone for this but it is bad planning. They want everything in Dublin, which is congested and where people are falling over taxis and buses and falling onto Luas lines. I walked from here last night at midnight, and three or four taxi drivers were calling me into their taxis and dozens of them were lined up. One would be waiting two hours for a taxi where I live and one which not get one. That is a fact.

All of this lip-service is no good. The Bill is a decent effort towards starting to do some rural-proofing and I do not think the Government will oppose it. The Minister said there is too much box-ticking and too many flaws in the Bill but it can undergo to legislative scrutiny. The Government can work with Sinn Féin and all of us who want to work on the Bill if it is serious about rural Ireland. I honestly believe that it is not. The lights are being turned out on a gradual basis. We have bad planning in the whole area of the regional strategies and the spatial strategy. We have companies such as Eirgrid and what happened today with the Bord na Móna factory in Littleton, County Tipperary. It has been there for 60 years with a workforce of 87 people and 57 people out on the bog. The lights were turned off again. The staff were told they can go into arbitration tomorrow and they can go to speak to their unions, which can represent them, and they might be able to get alternative employment. To hell or to Connacht is back with the Government. It is always the way with Fine Gael. This is its policy. I am not surprised by it. The party does not care about the ordinary people of Ireland. That is so sad.

We had the spectacle of the Taoiseach going to Glenamaddy - with its four country roads - or was it Edgeworthstown in County Longford? He announced whatever way he would go this week - with roads this way, that way and the other way. Two miles out from Edgeworthstown, one would drive into a pothole and lose the car. There is no broadband and no services for anything else. It is lip-service. Over the past 11 years we have roll-out after roll-out from successive Governments - I was in one Administration myself. I am sick of roll-outs. It is like the churn rolling in Tipperary Town, which is a festival that takes place in July. It is a wonderful festival. We are rolling out broadband and we are giving countless millions to consultants and big companies, who are milking the system and there is no service.

I know a young man who lives two miles from a particular town. He applied to join the Army approximately three years ago but was unsuccessful. He got a second chance approximately one year ago. He has very poor broadband at his house in Faugheen, County Tipperary, and he decided to go to Carrick-on-Suir to an Internet cafe to be sure to be sure for an interview online. Halfway through the interview - bang - he was disqualified and it was not his fault. People try to fill out CEO forms. Farmers try to apply online to the Department and it punishes them for not doing so. They do not have the broadband to allow them to apply online. People who want to study are not treated equally. They travel to colleges in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Tipperary and Clonmel but they are totally disadvantaged compared to people in towns with broadband because they cannot do it.

We speak about equality. We have some equality. We have second-class citizens and no better. Post offices are under savage attack. What did the Fine Gael Minister of State do? I told him here three weeks before Holy Week he had done the greatest Pontius Pilate job that was ever done. He said he had nothing more to do with it and that it was the responsibility of the Minister, Deputy Naughten. This is the greatest charade that ever happened. He is from Mayo and claims to be looking after the people of rural Ireland. He just dumped it on the Minister, Deputy Naughten. It was the greatest weakest meanest act. The Pontius Pilate job happened on Holy Thursday. This was two weeks before that. He wanted a very early Easter. I hope he got his Easter eggs. He will get them if he does not retire because the people are sick and tired of it in Mayo and everywhere else. The Government is paying lip service. I am surprised at the Minister because she is from the constituency of Cavan-Monaghan which is a very rural part of the country. It had huge industry, with very ordinary people who had cottage industries with poultry and mushrooms and everything else, but they are all gone.

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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They still have them and they are going well, thank God.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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They are not going well. The mushrooms are not going well. I go up there an odd time so I know what is going on. I am surprised. Is the Minister too far away from it now? She has been removed with her State car and she does not understand what is going on.

Rural people will work for themselves. They are not looking for handouts, they are looking for fair play and equity. The Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Ross, tells me €130 million has been applied for under the sports capital grants programme. I assure the Minister that more than half of this is from country clubs and ordinary people who do their day's work and go out and get involved in voluntary work in communities. The country would stop, particularly rural Ireland and the cities, if volunteers withdrew. What do we have here? The Government is blackguarding them day and night with more regulations from the EU and statutory instruments. I was here with the Minister of State, Deputy Kyne, last night and he accused me of raising my voice. I was furious. He brought a Bill to the House relating to people who were prosecuted by public officials when the latter did not have the legal right to do so. That was wrong and the law was defunct.

Seán Kyne (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy accused public officials of being like terrorists-----

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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People who appeal cases will get away with it now. We are passing retrospective laws here-----

Seán Kyne (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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-----which he should withdraw.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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-----to make legal what was done. That is a disgrace. It is an insult to ordinary rural people who are trying to clean their rivers and allow the waterways to be free to get flooding away from houses and roads.

Seán Kyne (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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What about the people who are poaching? Should we not try to prosecute people who are poaching fish?

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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What did the Parliament do last night? It passed a law to make the fines and the punishment legal. People were brought to court, charged and found guilty and their names were in newspapers wrongly-----

Seán Kyne (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy does not want any law of the land.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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-----because there was no legislation to do it. We are introducing retrospective legislation. That is what we are doing to people in rural Ireland. It is lip-service and to hell or to Connacht. The ordinary people are only minions and they do not matter.

I was surprised by the Minister of State. I did not think I would ever be in the House passing legislation to make people guilty of crimes of which they were innocent but found guilty under false legislation. I spoke to Deputy Pringle today and I told him I hope someone will challenge this because it is totally wrong and disgraceful that legislation can be passed to make guilty people who were charged with something of which they were not guilty.

Seán Kyne (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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We are not. We are transposing legislation that was not transposed properly in 2010.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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The courts had no authority under any legislation to charge people. They were brought to court and now we are making legislation to make it right. One cannot make a wrong right, and one cannot make rural Ireland right unless the Government gets serious about it and tears out the officials and gets them down and dirty, and down behind the shopkeepers and to the post offices so they understand how hard it is to keep the doors open. I am not saying rural Ireland wants anything special. It wants fair treatment. If the people only have fair treatment they will do the rest themselves. They will not depend on the Government and the Dublin brigade for the sops. They will do it themselves.

John Brassil (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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I compliment Deputy Martin Kenny on bringing this issue to the floor of the Dáil. As a rural Deputy, rural Ireland is obviously very important to me. Before I get onto the specifics of the Bill itself, it seems to be a habit of successive Ministers, when in government, to look at situations and try to gloss over the reality.

I will stand up for rural Ireland every day of the week. We talk about broadband. There is broadband in rural Ireland. It is possible to set up a small business in rural Ireland, but the service is sporadic and not comprehensive enough. The current plan is to have a comprehensive service by 2023. That simply is not soon enough. We have to be realistic. If we want to put rural Ireland on a par with the east coast, we have to do so in a manner that is comprehensive and quick.

These are very simple issues. Look at local GAA clubs across every county. They cannot field under-age teams. They have to combine with other clubs to put forward under-12, under-14 and under-16 teams. That is the reality. That is not something we are making up. We have seen four action plans for rural Ireland in the last two years. We do not need plans any more; we need action. We need those plans to be acted on and delivered.

Deputies have spoken about roads. From 1999 to 2007, there was substantial investment into local, rural and tertiary roads. Now in 2017, that investment is literally falling apart. The investment in roads in 2008 was 50% higher than what it is in 2017. Let us not fool ourselves. Unless we put the investment and money in, then all the plans in the world are not going to work.

We had local development agencies delivering Leader programme funding successfully, providing huge supports to all sorts of communities and agencies across rural Ireland. Mr. Phil Hogan, in his wisdom, decided to end that particular service and to bring the local development agencies into the local community development committees, LCDC, and into the local councils, which he thought was a great concept. That happened in 2014. It is now 2017, and in my county - I do not know if every other county is the same - not one cent of Leader funding has been spent since then. Something that was working efficiently and providing a great service was stopped and replaced but the reality is that nothing has happened. I would love to stand up here and say the LCDC was working. I would love to be able to say some of millions of euro was spent in my county because of the advent of this organisation, but the reality is that it has not been, and we have to stop fooling ourselves. We need action and spending but we do not need any more plans.

The Wild Atlantic Way was a fantastic concept and hugely successful. How much money has been invested on the way itself, specifically on the roads on the Wild Atlantic Way? Again, if my county is anything to go by, not a cent. All those issues need to be addressed and, in my opinion, what we are doing is producing reports which are great in content but very light on action.

On the Bill before us today, Fianna Fáil obviously appreciates the concept of rural-proofing, and it is essential to consider it in the development of rural areas. However, the Bill unfortunately contains many weaknesses and these need to be looked at. The weaknesses I refer to are that the Bill proposes that rural impact assessments be applied to legislative proposals, which would include money Bills. If this was to be transposed into law, it could impede the passing of the finance and social welfare Bills each year. It would also not be practical to carry out rural impact assessments on all policy proposals, including where proposals have no direct impact on rural communities. The Bill would obligate all public bodies in the State to prepare a rural impact assessment. It would seem to be a retrograde step for public bodies which do work that does not impinge on what is desired in the Bill, or with a certain geographical remit - for example, the Dublin Docklands Development Authority - to have to carry out such an assessment. Hollowing out rural areas the length and breadth of Ireland would not help. We would be carrying out unnecessary work which would not serve rural Ireland.

We will support the amendment put forward by the Government. However, I ask that the issues this Bill raises with regard to support for rural Ireland be addressed properly. Forget about glossy reports and glossy announcements and put in real investment.

Brian Stanley (Laois, Sinn Fein)
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I am glad to speak on this important Bill this evening. There has been a growing divide between urban and rural regions which has been ignored by successive Governments or, at best, we have not had effective measures to deal with it. We have regulatory impact assessments and social impact assessments and other legislation already in place. This Bill proposes a similar process and would have the same effect, potentially protecting rural communities.

Mention has been made of the fact the Bill may not be perfect. We have Committee and Report Stages where Bills can be changed and amendments can be put. I ask that the Bill go forward, and I know Deputy Martin Kenny will speak more on this as the man who put it forward and I want to compliment him on that. The Bill will put a statutory obligation on public bodies to adopt an impact assessment aimed at reducing inequalities for rural Ireland, which will show a clear commitment to the future of our rural communities. People are being forced out of communities. People may be living in rural Ireland, but are being forced out of it to find work and to suffer long daily commutes. We meet them every day on our way to Leinster House. This is because of the lack of employment, services and basic infrastructure. We need to put in proper infrastructure in the regions, whether it is mobile phone coverage, broadband coverage or rural post offices. This is every bit as important as the rural electrification scheme was in the last century.

The threats to rural Ireland are very real, and there are many examples of how they have been disregarded in various Government policies going back over the last number of decades, which seem to ignore the uncertain future of many rural communities. Coming on the back of the closure of many rural banks, we now have the threat of the closure of rural post offices. The potential closures will have a serious impact on community life. Following years of neglect, the Government now needs to look at the impact that this will have. It must develop other options to create a viable post office network by expanding the services. Our party has called for the inclusion of services such as those outlined in the Kerr report, including motor tax, business rates, banking services, collection of rents and various other Government services. We have been proposing that for a number of years. The former Deputy, Michael Colreavy, outlined this a number of years ago. Post offices should also retain existing services such as social welfare payments.

The Government's commitment in the action plan for rural development is to ensure that all homes and businesses are connected to broadband, which is good. We want that. The lack of high-speed broadband in rural Ireland is a serious limitation. It is key to helping to breathe life into sustainable rural economies and rural Ireland. There is a huge question mark over 540,000 homes and premises across Ireland that do not have proper coverage. There are a further 200,000 on top of that which will have proper coverage under the scheme announced a month ago. In fact, that is picking the low-hanging fruit. The company involved has had a go at me over it but I stand over what I said. If one picks the richest pickings first, anybody coming in after that will find it more difficult to service the hard to reach homes and premises. Previous commitments from Government on broadband access have failed in many areas and have failed many communities. They have left many communities behind, with no or very poor coverage.

The Government needs to have a clear vision for the way ahead for rural Ireland and it needs to take action. We have an opportunity with renewable energy.

We have not caught onto this properly at all. There have been some pilot projects but we need to go up a gear on this. There is an opportunity here to create jobs and income in rural Ireland through renewable energy. This would help sustain rural populations. We have options for the expansion of biomass, anaerobic digestion, solar, hydro and various other forms of renewable energy. It would help reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and we all know how far behind we are in that regard. It will help both to create a greener economy and to create economic growth within areas where jobs are needed most.

My constituency, comprising Laois and south Kildare, faces a number of problems including threatened post office closures and loss of other services. However, the population has increased by 5% there and there is no case for closing post offices. As we seek sustainable growth in the area, we need diversification of the services offered by the post office and with the increase in population, the post offices can be made sustainable. Utilities are lacking across the board in rural Ireland and for example, some people in Errill, south Laois, do not even have mobile phone coverage. In the townland that I live in, Clonroosk, which is on the edge of Portlaoise, I do not have mobile phone coverage. I have changed provider twice in the hope that I get mobile phone coverage, but in the year 2017, I still lack such coverage in my own house. I am getting high-speed broadband, which is being put in where I live at the moment and that is to be welcomed. However, there are huge tracts of Laois that do not have phone coverage. I believe the mobile phone companies are taking down masts because they do not want to pay rates on them. People are telling us that mobile phone coverage is getting worse. I find that in areas where there was coverage, it is now weakened.

On broadband, the latest commitment to roll out broadband to 200,000 homes and premises includes only 5,060 in County Laois. That still leaves 12,845 harder-to-reach premises and homes that will not be serviced and the company that goes in there will have rich pickings. In Kildare, for example, under the scheme recently announced, there will be 8,956 premises serviced. That discounts 13,434 harder-to-reach premises. I highlight that as a typical example of what is going on across the country.

Figures were released in response to a Sinn Féin Member's parliamentary question on IDA jobs showing a net gain of IDA-backed jobs in County Laois in 2015 and 2016 of 28. That is out of a total net gain of just over 39,000 in the State over that period. While there has been a net gain of 39,000 jobs in IDA-backed companies in the Twenty-six Counties, which and my party welcomes, only 28 of them were created in Laois. Somebody needs to catch someone in the IDA and give them a shake. The county councillors of all parties are complaining about it and Deputies are being asked what is happening with the IDA. Rural communities can struggle to have access to vital services and they are struggling to survive. We need firm legislative action to give protection to rural Ireland and that is what this Bill does.

I will flag the importance of local government, which is sometimes left out. Local government need to be brought in as central players in this regard. I travelled around rural areas last weekend in my own constituency, as I do most weekends. There are fairly good facilities in some villages, including good sporting facilities and GAA clubs, but there are problems with lack of players. There are good primary schools in the villages but they lack the critical hub. We need to make sure we have post offices, good broadband services and shops. There is an area from Mountrath in County Laois to Kinnitty in County Offaly, where Deputy Nolan lives, in which one cannot buy a sliced pan or a bottle of milk as there is no shop. It is a huge area, a 25-mile strip, where one cannot even buy tea bags. We need to make sure that we have critical hubs.

The population is going to increase in this State. Let us try to build hubs and try to ensure that some of that population increase happens in rural villages. That can be done with good planning in a sustainable way and should be connected to sewerage and water schemes.

Carol Nolan (Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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Gabhaim buíochas as ucht an deis labhairt ar an mBille tábhachtach seo.

First, I commend my party colleague, Deputy Martin Kenny, for bringing forward this Bill. The purpose of this Bill is to ensure that public bodies submit policy measures, legislation and regulations for rural proofing. It requires that regard be had by public bodies to the desirability of reducing socio-economic and other inequalities suffered by those in rural Ireland. It provides for the carrying out of rural impact assessments for measures that are likely to have a significant impact on local communities. It is a short, simple Bill designed to deal with the unequal treatment of people in rural areas and to protect rural communities. This measure has been introduced in the North and an enhanced rural proofing process was put on a statutory footing under the leadership of the then Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development, Michelle O’Neill.

Rural Ireland and rural communities are the heartbeat of this country. This Government pays a lot of lip service to rural Ireland but the truth is that the lack of investment in rural communities is having a real impact on the lives of many rural communities. People living in rural communities are being treated as second-class citizens. I have always lived in rural Ireland and have witnessed the decimation of rural communities day by day. Outside of the large urban centres, there are no green shoots of economic recovery. Rural communities have witnessed the closure of vital services such as post offices, Garda stations and even banks. In my constituency of Offaly-North Tipperary two banks, in Ferbane and Edenderry, have closed in recent times while in north Tipperary, Garda stations in Lorrha and Terryglass have closed despite local opposition and people pleading for them to be left open.

Rural communities have looked on helplessly as young people have been left with no option but to travel to cities or even other countries to find work or to avail of educational opportunities. Rural communities have to wait longer for access to health services due to the lack of investment in ambulances. They have to put up with a lack of effective public transport and huge swathes of rural communities have no access to broadband. In this day and age this is totally unacceptable. Many farmers depend on broadband to file returns and other forms and there is no excuse for not providing access to it. It means that businesses, schools and other bodies located in rural Ireland are at a distinct disadvantage.

Under the Fine Gael-Labour Government, local communities were disempowered. Infrastructure has deteriorated as a result of severe cuts to regional and local budgets affecting roads, housing delivery and, most noticeably in recent times, flood protection. I have met with IDA representatives on two occasions in Edenderry, a town in north Offaly with the highest rate of vacant commercial buildings in the country. I wanted to encourage them to secure investment in our towns where it is needed.

I was informed they were not looking at Edenderry or many other towns in Offaly because our roads are too poor.

I tabled a parliamentary question to the Minister, Deputy Ross, and I might as well not have bothered because he lives in a very wealthy urban constituency and is completely out of touch with rural communities. Based on the answer I got back, I would have expected more from a Minister. I again implore him to look at the budget and ensure rural communities are given enough money for the upkeep of roads. The poor roads are resulting in us losing out on jobs and the potential of investment to grow the economy. We are being set back as a result.

Towns and villages across the State have become depopulated and many are like ghost towns. Our farming and fishing communities have come under attack and many farmers on poorer quality land struggle to make ends meet. There high level of farm inspections in Tipperary is also an issue of concern for many farmers who are already under tremendous stress living from day to day trying to make an income to support their families. That also needs to be looked at; we have to be fair.

More than 40% of people live in urban areas while more than one third of the population of this State live in or near Dublin. This imbalance is unsustainable. Sinn Féin wants to make rural Ireland a sustainable place to live and work, where the quality of life is matched by the quality of public services. It should be a place where young educated graduates have the opportunity to stay and build their future, and a place that welcomes back emigrants, including those forced to leave over recent years.

The Bill, if implemented, will provide our rural communities with a fighting chance of survival. It will ensure that the rights of local communities are respected at all levels of policy making. There is a disconnect and a lack of respect for rural communities. We will not continue to be treated as second-class citizens. I say that as a rural Deputy. I hope that all Deputies will support this important legislation.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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I am conscious that we will run out of time before we have heard from everyone. I suggest that the remaining speakers would drop one minute from their contributions to allow us to stay within the time limits. I call Deputy Ferris and ask him to stick to nine minutes.

Martin Ferris (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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Okay.

The Minister, Deputy Humphreys said in her speech, "What we all want is for rural Ireland to be treated fairly in decision making locally and nationally but what we need is genuine and meaningful engagement on rural issues with [relevant] policy makers at both national and local level". I will start my 16th year as a Deputy at the end of this month. During that period I was a rapporteurfor the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine. I completed a report on the west of Ireland, Awakening the West - Overcoming Social and Economic Inequality. In preparing that report I travelled from Malin Head in Donegal right down to west County Cork. I met fishermen, farmers and their organisations. I met people from family resource centres and small and medium-sized businesses. I met representatives of every sector it was possible to meet and produced this report. That report was accepted and supported unanimously by the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine. It has sat in an office gathering dust since 2004.

Deputy Pearse Doherty, Teachta Dála for Donegal, also completed a report on small and medium-sized businesses, which is sitting out there somewhere. I believe that dates back to 2007. The former Minister, Mr. Phil Hogan - after pressure from people from rural areas, particularly Pat Spillane who believes passionately in rural Ireland - produced the CEDRA report. That is also sitting out there somewhere gathering dust.

I cannot understand how a Minister can stand up here and say, "What we all want is for rural Ireland to be treated fairly in decision making locally and nationally". The four successive governments that have been in power since I was first elected have all said the same thing. I was part of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Communications, Natural Resources and Agriculture which did a report on our offshore oilfields. That report is also sitting out there even though supported unanimously by the committee. While Ministers might say that is what they want to see, what the hell are they doing about it? The reality is that nothing has changed and it has got worse.

There is a decline in the numbers of young people in rural Ireland. I come from a coastal county. Right across the west and south of the county was the home of Kerry football. Every club south and east of Dingle has amalgamated with one or two other clubs for under-age football. Valentia Island is a fantastic area and one that has increased its population through returning elderly people. However, with young people it is struggling to put out a football team. One might ask why. The Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Ross, was in the area recently to discuss a ferry which is a lifeline for tourism for the island. The ferry company has been told to replace its vessel at a cost of €3 million. From its own pocket it is putting up €1 million. The Minister, Deputy Ross, has told me that €2 million is a huge amount of money and he does not think he would be able to get it. It would only cost €2 million to keep a community alive and vibrant.

I spent part of my life as a fisherman, from the mid-1960s, through part of the 1970s and into the early 1980s. I saw it gradually declining because there was no political support for our coastal communities. I do not need to tell the Minister of State that; he knows it, as he comes from a coastal county. Some 87% of the mackerel quota is in the hands of 23 vessels. I know from the Minister of State's body language that he feels that is a terrible injustice even though he might not be able to say so in here. It is an absolute political disgrace. Who runs the country? Do the elected Government run the country or does the permanent government run the country? That is one of those disgraces. There is an increase in the mackerel quota. Will it be distributed equitably among those involved in the inshore fisheries? If the Government had a bit of fairness or equality, it would have vibrant coastal communities. However, because it has no political will to drive that equality agenda, the coastal communities are absolutely decimated.

The same can be said for the farming community. The small family farm has practically been eroded of the face of our country. In large part that is down to cartels that are able to set the prices based on their agenda. Everybody in this House knows what I am talking about but nothing has been done about it. There is a cartel where a huge beef baron can tell farmers what they are going to get because he has access to the national data. Again nothing can be done about it even though we all know it is happening. Until there is the political will to challenge those who institutionalise inequality in our society, it will continue as it is.

We have the erosion of post offices in rural communities and the closure of a large number of Garda stations with more due to go. There is also the transport aspect. Elderly people living in peripheral rural areas depend on the small post offices and the postman to get the messages to their house. If that goes, those people are left totally and absolutely on their own and without any support.

The Minister, Deputy Humphreys, said "I accept the need for better rural-proofing of policies across national and local government systems". Every Minister I have ever come across has said the same thing, but none of them have done anything about it. Deputy Brassil is a friend of mine and yet he has said that Fianna Fáil cannot support the Bill.

7 o’clock

I know well he cannot support it, because while in government his party did absolutely nothing. With his party practically in coalition in this Government, it is not going to implement something that is going to try to help deliver equality for the people who live in rural Ireland.

The Minister of State is from rural Ireland and he knows what I am talking about. He will probably respond by reading the script prepared by the people in the Civil Service and say things that undermine what we are saying. I do not mind him trying to undermine that or trying to challenge the Bill we have put before the House. However, I ask him for God's sake not to pay lip service by saying that he is going to do something about it, because my experience and knowledge of what is happening in this House is that rural Ireland is just some place out there that is thrown something now and then and that is all.

Deputy Martin Kenny comes from rural Ireland and is as passionate as I am and as many others are in this House. We have to stand together. I do not give a God damn what political party Members are in. If we do not stand for the communities we represent, we should not be in here.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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I call Deputy Bríd Smith. She has nine minutes.

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Is that the Ceann Comhairle making it up or is it me?

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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I am making it up.

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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It was the Ceann Comhairle. I find it highly ironic that I am probably the only Dub in the House. I do not know about the guys working here, but I certainly feel like asking whether there any Dubs in the House at all. It is always made to look like there is an urban-rural divide behind this. However, most of the rural Deputies are from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael and it is extraordinarily ironic that they come into the House time after time making a commitment to rural Ireland, yet at every hand's turn they are destroying its very existence with their policies.

I argue that there is not some deep fissure between people born in the greater Dublin area and the rest of the country. Indeed, most of the people in the Dublin area have country cousins. There is not an antagonism towards rural Ireland. It is rather an issue of politics and class. I will go through the statistics later on. Just as there are very isolated parts of rural Ireland in which people suffer deep poverty, unemployment and tick all of the boxes, that can also be seen in areas like Neilstown, Jobstown and in parts of my constituency such as Ballyfermot. The question of class is very fundamental to this. The way in which resources are used is very fundamental. Most important, it is political policies that are driving the destruction and the isolation of rural Ireland. They are the policies of modern-day neoliberalism that says that everything has to happen to turn over a buck and make a profit, despite the occupancy of the areas, the quality of life and the people who live within them.

I completely agree with Deputy Ferris and could not repeat as eloquently as he did the tragedy of what has happened to rural fishing communities. It is tragic. I often think when I see the Wild Atlantic Way advertised - I know the west very well as I love it - that it is advertising something the State has pulled apart and destroyed. There used to be dozens of little piers around Mayo, Galway, Donegal and Kerry that one could drive along, visit, camp beside, hang out in or rent a house nearby. The life has been torn out of them. One will hardly ever see a crab cage or a bunch of nets there because the life has been torn out of those rural communities. As a consequence, the people have left.

I will look at three specific issues that I have been involved in since I was elected to the House. The first is Bus Éireann. Rural transport is being treated, again, like a commodity. If it does not turn over a profit and does not do so fast enough to compete on the open market with the private operators, what is the Government's answer? It is to drive down the wages and conditions of the workers in the company and to take away many of the rural transport routes. Something like 200 towns and cities, mainly towns, have been left without Bus Éireann services. At the end of this month, the bus line that services Dublin to Derry is going to be closed. I know that it is going to be passed on to the Translink company in Northern Ireland, but at the same time, we are going to bypass many towns that bus route serves. We have seen the strike and been through the arguments about this. The National Transport Authority is a quango set up by the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport that allows the Minister, Deputy Ross, to sit through months of the transport strike, and probably to do so again in the future, while it tries to bully workers into accepting deals with the threat that this company will fold if they do not accept them. It allows Deputy Ross to say it has nothing to do with him, that it is the National Transport Authority that issues the licences and that it is a dispute between the National Transport Authority and the unions. That neoliberal hands-off approach to a very fundamental service in rural Ireland has led to much of its isolation.

The second remarkable thing I would like to talk about is the closure of the post offices and the demise of what those post offices meant to rural Ireland and to villages. I have certainly never lived long enough in rural Ireland, but anecdotally I can tell the Minister of State of how I have seen first-hand the post office act as a social headquarters for local villages and communities. The postmaster or postmistress was almost like a social worker knowing exactly who or what needed help and when and how it needed it. If someone did not show up, he or she would send someone out to look after them because God knows what was wrong with them. All of that has been torn out. What I found remarkable over recent months both in the committee and in the Dáil is that between the three different Ministers, none of them would take responsibility for it. To my knowledge, they are still not taking responsibility for it. They are all getting paid a nice fat wage and will retire on nice fat pensions, but they are not taking responsibility for the demise of one of the crucial services that look after rural Ireland.

The last thing I want to talk about in terms of infrastructure is broadband. We have privatised the provision of broadband and we are still making a bags of it. The Government's idea is to take it away, let companies compete with each other, see which can give us the best price and see where it goes from there. In the 1950s, we were able to turn on the lights in the Black Valley and in every little isolated community in Ireland. We did not ask how long it would take to tender it or what company would be able to deliver it quicker, faster or neater. We set up a State company called the Electricity Supply Board and that did the business. It brought the power to the Black Valley, to Glencolumbkille and wherever else. We are going to make a bags of it by putting it in private hands, just as we are making a bags of the question of social housing provision.

As long as we prioritise the right of profit over the right of communities, individuals and our population to decent services, we will face the continued decline, isolation and utter destruction of our rural communities. As a Dub, I find that obnoxious. I will stand up for those communities, be they the post office workers, the bus workers or any of those fishing communities, at any stage at which they stand up and fight this State for adopting a neoliberal approach to their lives rather than one that actually fulfils their needs.

Michael Harty (Clare, Independent)
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I thank Deputy Martin Kenny for bringing this Bill to the Dáil because it is very close to my heart. I was involved in the negotiations for a partnership Government. On page 42 of the Programme for a Partnership Government document, it states:

As part of our smarter regulation agenda, the new Government will step up the use of impact assessments across Government, driven by a new specialised section within the Cabinet Secretariat. The new impact assessment guidelines will have to take account of impacts on rural Ireland as well as other socio-economic factors.

That is actually in the programme for Government. The commitment to carry out impact assessments is already there. It seems to me that this Bill will take that aspiration of the Programme for a Partnership Government a step further and enshrine it in legislation. At European Commission level, impact assessments are conducted for all major policy proposals to guide decision-makers and improve the quality of legislation. The office of the Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development in Europe sees impact assessment models as a support to the development of policy with the aim of making the best possible evidence available to those who are responsible for making choices and taking decisions. This is not new. It is enshrined in our programme for Government and also in Europe.

I would take issue with just confining it to the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. I believe carrying out impact studies should be a cross-departmental responsibility. It could involve the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment, the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, the Department of Health, the Department of Education and Skills, and the Department of Children and Youth Affairs. It needs to be broadened out in that regard. The Bill will put an onus on public bodies to focus on rural-proofing and carry out not just environmental assessment statements for planning but also rural impact assessment statements, which will make us aware of the positive and negative factors associated with any particular policy and how it will affect rural society.

This is not just an economy, it is also a society. We have to respect that. We need to rural-proof many of our decisions. I was involved in a campaign which started out as very narrow; it was no doctor, no village. We soon realised, however, as we organised town hall meetings around the county, that it was not just about rural GP services. People felt disenfranchised because rural Ireland was being neglected. We had people protesting about the closure of post offices and Garda stations, schools decline, the loss of shops and pubs. Our campaign picked up on the unravelling of the fabric of rural society, which is to be regretted, but there is an inequality in the unravelling. We pay the same taxes but, unfortunately, we get a very unfair return and deficient services. Many speakers have spoken about the lack of infrastructure in rural Ireland, including broadband, mobile phone services, connectivity and rural transport services. It boils down to the fact that if there are no businesses in rural Ireland, there will be no people. There are knock-on effects of so many Government decisions, many of which are unintended consequences. In having an impact study the unintended consequences could be identified early and rectified.

I will concentrate on rural transport services, including Rural Link. There are 17 companies throughout Ireland which need to be funded in a flexible manner. Transport Infrastructure Ireland intends to bring uniformity to all Rural Link transport systems, many of which have to adapt to the geography and the people they serve. There is a need for flexibility in the way they are run and funded.

Employment is key to the sustainability of rural Ireland. We must encourage local enterprise offices, Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland to get companies to set up in rural Ireland. As Deputy Peadar Tóibín mentioned, this has become a nation of city states. We are overheating the major cities, Dublin in particular, as can be seen in the price of housing, the lack of housing, the congestion and the social problems caused by all of these factors. We should be promoting the positivity associated with rural Ireland, the landscape, our culture and the quality of life in rural Ireland. We should be selling these to international companies which are finding that they cannot provide housing or infrastructure for their employees. It is about equality nationwide. One can go to many countries in Europe and not be aware of an inequality between town and country because they have rural-proofed their decisions and provided infrastructure to give equal opportunities. Ireland lacks that concept. We do not have a culture of supporting isolated and rural communities. We have to adapt our policies to take this into account. There is a vicious circle of decline in rural areas which we have to transform into a viable circle of growth. If we can encourage people to live and work in rural Ireland and provide the infrastructure needed, we can do that. We must implement the recommendations made in the CEDRA report, a wonderful report produced in 2014. Many of its recommendations have not been implemented, but Clare County Council has taken the lead and set up a rural development section. Perhaps other councils are doing the same, but as far as I know, it was the first council to do so. It has set up a rural development forum which has been meeting in the past few months. In June it will develop a rural development strategy for County Clare which we hope will act as a template for other county councils and which will look at strengths and weaknesses and develop rural development structures within the county. We will be looking for some funding from the Government to fund the provision of rural development officers who could concentrate on specific areas in the county which need viable rural development.

I have mentioned that Dublin is overheating. We can see it in every aspect of society. When Members leave Leinster House this evening, it will probably take them an hour to get as far as the M50. We have to look at rural Ireland in a completely different way. Rural-proofing of decisions is extremely important in the case of health services. We have centralised services in the past ten years under the heading of "reconfiguration". Reconfiguration made some sense when concentrating expertise in regional hospitals, but we have stripped county hospitals of viable services. There has been a failure to devolve services to such hospitals which could provide a huge number of services close to where people live and prevent them from having to travel constantly to centralised regional services. There are deficiencies in mental health services and also in the ambulance service. At times in County Clare one can wait two or three hours for an ambulance because of the lack of ambulance staff. As I said, we are in danger of becoming a country of city states. We need balanced regional development. It is no longer an optional extra but absolutely essential.

Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour)
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I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak on behalf of the Labour Party on the important topic of rural preservation, regeneration and revitalisation. Rural-proofing of decisions would ensure rural Ireland was not sidelined or overlooked but would get its just desserts. It is an important principle. All we are seeking is fair play, to which we are entitled. This cause is one to which I have not just come in recent times but is one which has underpinned the Labour Party philosophy which I developed and articulated in the early 1990s. It is party policy.

The Government has a number of issues with the Bill. They are relevant and cannot be discounted, but they could be addressed by Deputy Gino Kenny, the proposer of the Bill, in a spirit of co-operation. I compliment him on bringing it forward. The Labour Party broadly supports its objectives, while acknowledging that there are issues that could be sorted out. As a party, we are unequivocal and extremely passionate about ensuring economic growth reaches every part of Ireland in order that families will be able to continue to live, work and raise children in rural areas and play an important role in their communities. We need a real and effective charter for rural Ireland that identifies clearly key issues so as to better support rural areas. There must be more active participation in rural development initiatives developed by communities, not by bureaucrats in imposing their own solutions which are generalised, idealistic and theoretical. It must be done using a bottom-up approach to support economic and community development and with stronger action to keep family farms and rural entrepreneurs viable.

We must also address structural issues such as the age and gender profile of the agriculture sector. While it is not the only active industry in rural Ireland, it is the backbone of the rural economy. We must ensure better co-ordination between local enterprise offices and local authorities to support local enterprise projects and minimise the red tape which is strangling initiatives. In the recent general election the Labour Party proposed initiatives to deal with some of these issues, but they were drowned out in the maelstrom of electoral razzmatazz.

We have had our fill of glossy reports. What we want are real, effective and substantial resources. We do not want to receive a pittance which is tantamount to, metaphorically, doffing the State's hat at long-standing issues which will cause the death of rural communities. There has been a fall-off in population. We see the future of rural schools being threatened, football teams disappearing and churches, Garda stations and post offices closing, all because, as Deputy Martin Ferris said, the population is dropping. We need a town revival programme, safer rural communities and lower cost services for rural families, not just farmers. We also need more incentives to support young and small farmers to encourage them to enter the artisan food and organic farming sector. There should be targeted action to regenerate derelict sites and increase funding for rural businesses and projects. We must build thriving hubs of economic activity across every region. It should not stop at Lucan, Newlands Cross or outside the Pale.

I recall the establishment of CEDRA and the rural development economic zones which saw some investment in the rural economy. Despite the multiplicity of recommendations emanating from CEDRA under the chairmanship of Mr. Pat Spillane who was very dedicated and committed, only a paltry amount of a few million euro was allocated to drive them forward. It was a missed opportunity because the initiatives were an attempt at rebalancing investment in a targeted way. I am aware of the launch on 8 January by the Ministers, Deputies Heather Humphreys and Denis Naughten, and the Taoiseach of Realising our Rural Potential: Action Plan for Rural Development.

Some of us who live in rural heartlands, like myself, are echoing the cries of the late John Healy who continually outlined in his brilliant book, No One Shouted Stop, how thriving towns and villages were decimated and became, in effect, lasting monuments to our failures and to what was essentially the turning of a blind eye to the myriad of problems by the State. In effect, such towns and villages fell foul of non-integrated Government activity, policies and actions.

We need a more joined-up approach in Government policy on agriculture so that we maximise the potential links between food production and tourism. Smaller scale producers need to supported to go after niche markets through innovative use of protected food designations. I am very strongly supportive of Rural Economic Development Zones, REDZ, to better support businesses and producers in small towns and villages. This needs a fund of at least €20 million to €25 million to give it real impetus going forward. It is time that a targeted social enterprise scheme was established which could be funded from the local property tax to facilitate the reopening of key high street facilities such as pubs, shops and post offices which formerly formed the heart of rural communities. Local authorities need to continue to support town renewal plans so as to allow towns to devise their own local development plans and improve local infrastructure and amenities. These plans would assist in preserving and restoring local heritage sites and developing a vision for the future of rural and urban areas.

The Government's rural action plan lists 270 actions to be carried out by various agencies across Government, as well as utilising existing plans. It refers to the revitalisation of 600 towns and villages, improved access to broadband and the arts, improved tourism activity trails and so forth. However, the hole in the bucket is the level of resources allocated. A total of €60 million across roughly 32 counties amounts to €2 million per county, which is totally insufficient. We need hundreds of millions of euro to re-balance the country.

The CAP accounts for 37% of the EU budget but there is ongoing pressure from some member states to reduce that proportion and to direct EU spending to new issues such as migration. There is also huge competition for funding for other more traditional policies. The UK's departure from the EU will reduce the overall budget by between 5% and 10%. This will put significant pressure on the availability of funding for the future CAP. While the CAP budget for Pillars I and II is funded until 2020, there will be a big hole in the budget thereafter which could have significant consequences for rural communities and farmers in particular. It represents a real and substantial threat.

The provision of high speed broadband and the digitalisation of rural areas can transform those areas. The Ludgate Hub in Skibbereen is an outstanding example of how such a transformation can be effective. It was Ireland's first rural digital hub, providing users with 1000 megabytes of super fast broadband. It provides state of the art co-working spaces and makes room for professionals in Skibbereen in West Cork. Since opening in April 2016, it has been a beacon of success. The World Bank has suggested that a slight increase in broadband speeds can raise local GDP by up to 10%. Once super fast broadband reaches an area, success follows. Clearly, connectivity is the key. We do not need to reinvent the wheel. The Ludgate Hub serves as a beacon of innovation for rural Ireland and this can be replicated across the country if there is a will. Talk is cheap, however but bringing together the whole community and installing the necessary infrastructure can bring results. Let us resurrect rural villages and bring people back to rural Ireland.

The local needs criteria in the planning code, as part of county development plans, is about to be eliminated and die and that will help. In villages of between 300 and 400 people no rates or charges should be levied on local shops or businesses. They are all struggling to survive and compete against the likes of Aldi and Lidl in the large county towns, many of which were granted permission to locate on the edge of those towns and in out of town centres, which was another bad planning decision. If we do not recognise the importance of rural shops as cornerstones of rural sustainability, they will disappear off the landscape. In the next four to five years many of these shops will go to the wall, helped to their end by State and bureaucratic statutorily imposed charges and levies and neglect. Let us wake up and smell the coffee while the embers are still alive. Shops and post offices have the potential for shared community services and to act as multi-purpose spaces for the community.

We cannot hang our hat on the same old tried and failed formulas. In Ballymore Eustace, which is part of the Ceann Comhairle's constituency, the local postmaster, Mr. Sean Fogarty has established a pioneering hub, offering online consultations with doctors and other services from his post office. That typifies the entrepreneurship that is required to save our post office network. All this baloney, talk and theory is nonsense. We need flexible and innovative thinking which is not blinkered or institutionalised, qualities which have bedevilled Irish bureaucratic views for decades.

Last year 22 newsagents disappeared in rural Ireland. The National Federation of Retail Newsagents has called for the creation of a dedicated ombudsman for micro retailers who are being crushed by the big boys and driven out of town. Let us do like John Healy, let us shout "Stop". Instead of throwing €20 million or €30 million as window dressing, let us pour hundreds of millions into rural Ireland. Everyone of us in rural areas pays tax but we are disadvantaged. We do not have Luas or buses passing by our gates. Very often we are thumbing a lift, confined to a bike or forced to walk. No-one knows that better than the Minister of State, Deputy Kyne.

I spoke about the potential of the fishing industry last night. I do not want to go off on a tangent, but that is one area on which the Minister has a good grasp. I wholeheartedly support this Bill, as a rural person who has seen at first hand the devastation that has been wrought in rural Ireland.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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There are two minutes remaining if Deputy Pat Buckley wishes to make a contribution to the debate.

Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein)
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I will do my best with two minutes.

It is the job of a Government and a State which claims to be a republic, to treat all its people equally, with an equal right to housing, health care, education and other essential services which we depend on to live and prosper. The running down of Bus Éireann is salient in this regard. Bus Éireann is in the Government's cross hairs because its entire purpose is to serve as many people across the island as possible. Bus Éireann is vital to the continuation of rural communities but is in direct opposition to the Government's desire not to invest in anything that will not make a quick buck.

Courtmacsharry, which is not in my constituency but in my county, once had a railway station, a dance hall, cinema, petrol station and 17 shops. The last shop closed last year but local residents formed a small co-op. This is what is happening in rural Ireland. In my own constituency of Cork East, I recently met members of a rural community group. They explained that while we now have the Wild Atlantic Way and Ireland's Ancient East to promote rural and coastal areas, tourists cannot get down the roads in their area. There are lights at the start of the village, nothing in the middle and lights at the end. Once one gets past that, the beaches are closed. There has been much talk about investing in rural Ireland, particularly in tourism. We must invest in our rural areas, treat them properly and engage with the people who live there. We need to improve our roads, footpaths, lights and broadband but above all, we must treat our rural citizens properly. We have a property tax but the people of rural Ireland are getting nothing for it. This is about equality because we all pay tax.

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for giving me the opportunity to contribute to the debate on Deputy Martin Kenny's Bill.

Seán Kyne (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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Cuirim fáilte i dtús báire roimh an díospóireacht seo. Tá áthas orm deis a fháil labhairt ar an ábhar seo - cothrom na Féinne do mhuintir na tuaithe. Bhí mé ar turas i nGaeltacht na Rinne i gContae Phort Lairge inné. Bhí áthas orm an obair atá á dhéanamh ag Údarás na Gaeltachta sa cheantar tuaithe Gaeltachta seo a fheiceáil. Is iontach an rud é go bhfuil daoine fostaithe sa cheantar. Agus é sin ráite, bíonn dúshláin ann i gcónaí. I acknowledge the population shifts that have taken place in this country over a long number of years. Deputy Tóibín alluded to the fact that over 50% of the population of our country now lives in the province of Leinster. Even within counties, we have seen a shift from rural areas to the cities or large towns. This has happened over a long number of years and I acknowledge and accept that this is the situation. That is why we accept the sentiments of Deputy Martin Kenny's Bill and hope that its principles will be debated by an Oireachtas Committee which can explore the issues further.

A number of Deputies made reference to the programme for Government and the preceding establishment talks. The Government did establish a Department of Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs. Obviously every Department touches in some way on rural Ireland. It is impossible to bring everything into one Department. We cannot have a Department that looks after rural health and another that looks after city health because it is all interconnected. Likewise, we cannot have a Department for rural transport and another for urban transport. That simply would not work. There has to be cross-departmental collaboration on issues concerning rural Ireland. There is an interdepartmental committee and that is why the action plan for rural Ireland was published. All Departments have key targets and responsibilities to deliver on and there is an implementation group that is working to that plan.

The Minister, Deputy Humphreys, has outlined the reasons she cannot support the Bill. That is not to say we do not support the principle of improving life in rural Ireland and providing equality for people in rural Ireland. We want a plan that actually works. We would welcome the input of an Oireachtas committee in this regard. No previous Government has put in place such a co-ordinated and comprehensive plan of action to support rural development.

A number of Deputies - probably everybody who spoke - touched on the issue of broadband. I share the level of frustration that has been felt for many years by politicians, business people and rural dwellers as a consequence of the many false dawns there have been. I can understand the suspicions that persist, even with the latest commitment contract with Eir. I know that houses are already being connected. Houses in my own parish of Moycullen are being physically connected to fibre. There have been similar developments in the Cois Fharraige area of Connemara. People can see that it is coming. Some 300,000 houses that were not connected last year will be connected over the next 90 weeks. I appreciate there is more to do. I understand why people who are living in close proximity to areas that are connected ask why the service cannot be extended further down the road. People want to know why their neighbours can get these services but they cannot. Such services will be delivered over the next period of time.

A number of Deputies mentioned post offices. I am not going to pretend that this is not a challenge. It will continue to be a challenge. I remind Deputy Mattie McGrath that 288 post offices closed between 2005 and 2010 when the Government he supported was in power. There have been fewer closures since 2011 than there were during that period. That is not to say that challenges do not exist. I know that the Kerr and McKinsey reports are being examined. I hope we can ensure the existing post office network is saved.

I accept that there are issues with rural mobile phone coverage. There is a task force. An implementation group chaired by Ministers is seeking to ensure we improve rural broadband. I am aware that planning permission for a mast in my own area was not renewed because people objected to the mast. Funnily enough, some people were talking on their phones outside the local authority while they were objecting to the mast. Their objections have resulted in poor quality coverage in the area in question but that is beside the point. I accept that there are concerns about rural mobile phone coverage. The implementation group is looking at solutions in that regard.

Deputy Tóibín spoke about the spatial strategy, which has not worked. We are pursuing the Ireland 2040 strategy in its place. The projected growth under the spatial strategy did not materialise. That is why we have asked for inputs under Ireland 2040.

The Deputy also spoke about unemployment, which has decreased from 15% to 6% since 2011. I could speak at length about the challenges we have faced since that time, but my time is almost up.

The Government is committed to improving services in rural Ireland, despite all the challenges that exist, to ensure it gets a fair share of resources. I hope the sentiments of the Bill can be explored by an Oireachtas committee, which can then report back to the Dáil.

Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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I want to try to focus on the positive here. The general consensus among everyone is that rural Ireland has huge problems. Deputies from every political party and none, including those who are in government and those who support the Government from the Independent benches, recognise that rural Ireland has suffered from under-investment. That is acknowledged in the programme for Government. There is a sense that rural-proofing needs to happen and that a system needs to be developed to facilitate it.

The Minister, Deputy Humphreys, set out a range of reasons for the Government's position on this legislation. She said the Bill would require too much work and too much analysis. She referred to the difficulty caused by the fact that the scope of the Bill means that it covers many Departments. She mentioned the Dublin Port authority as an example of a State body that has nothing to do with rural Ireland. We understand that point. Nobody is saying that this will work everywhere, or that every Department will have to be rural-proofed. It would be quite absurd to make such a suggestion. Common sense will apply, naturally enough. The Dublin Port authority will have no problem crossing the bar when it comes to rural-proofing. This Bill seeks to ensure the budgets of Departments with nationwide responsibilities, such as the Departments of Education and Skills and Health, will be examined to ensure rural Ireland is getting the same level of provision, at least, as urban Ireland. We are not making that proposal with the aim of taking anything away from urban Ireland. As Deputy Bríd Smith said, many people who live in Dublin and other urban areas are encountering difficulties.

I do not think the Government's reasons for not being able to support our rural-proofing proposal stand up. Its programme for Government suggests that this needs to be done. We are suggesting that rural-proofing should be legislated for to make sure it is guaranteed. We are giving the Government an opportunity to ensure that when it leaves office at some point in the future - it might be in a year or in ten years - people will not be able to point to this as another area in which it has failed. If it accepts this legislation and ensures it works, it will be able to point to this initiative as an example of its success in working with other parties.

The various problems that have been highlighted can be teased out as this Bill advances through Committee and Report Stages. For example, it was suggested that the Minister for Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, rather than the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, should be dealing with this area. That may very well be true, but this is the first Government that has had a full Minister with responsibility for rural affairs. There has always been a senior Minister with responsibility for agriculture. That is the reason we have proposed that the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine should be the key person in this regard. At least we know there will always be a Minister for agriculture. This aspect of the Bill can be broadened out to give a role to several Ministers, if that is what needs to be done. All these things can be done on Committee and Report Stages.

Many Deputies spoke about the many problems in rural Ireland. It is important to mention that there are many magnificent things about rural Ireland as well. We need to harness the huge potential that exists in rural Ireland. When I travel around my constituency, I see Ben Bulben in its magnificence as it overlooks Sligo Bay and I see surfers going out to sea in Ballyshannon and Bundoran in County Donegal. When I am in County Leitrim, I see the waterfall in Glencar and I see people boating on the River Shannon in Carrick-on-Shannon. This level of potential exists in the tourism industry alone, but many people cannot access it because of this country's poor road infrastructure. Many people who would like to live in that area because of its beauty and its quality of life do not do so because of the lack of access to quality broadband. Many industries do not locate in that part of the world because of the lack of sufficient infrastructure to ensure they can prosper.

I recently spoke to representatives of an English company who were thinking of moving some of their manufacturing to Ireland as a result of Brexit. One of the company's senior executives has a connection to County Leitrim and considered whether some manufacturing could be moved to that county. When the company's officials looked at the possibility, they realised that the travel time to Dublin Port was too long. They decided that if they are going to move some of their business to Ireland - I hope they will do so - they will locate somewhere nearer Dublin because of the travel times involved. It is mainly down to the road network.

Rural Ireland needs certain things to happen if it is to fulfil its magnificent potential. The production economics for manufacturing businesses located in rural Ireland are better than anywhere else because houses are cheaper both to buy and to rent. Lower salaries can be paid because the cost of living is not as high as it is in urban areas. All those things are advantages that businesses can have if we can get them into rural Ireland. We have magnificent potential in many ways. Ireland and its rural communities have a positive story to tell. The biggest problem in our rural communities is that they do not have enough people in them. That is what this is about. If we can get more people into rural Ireland, we can change things around. The only way we can get more people to come to live and stay in rural Ireland is to make sure the necessary infrastructure exists in rural Ireland.

I remember speaking a few years ago to a group of consultants led by Peter Quinn, who is a former president of the GAA. He drew up a report on the things that attract IDA Ireland businesses to come to certain areas. Among the key things mentioned in the report were access to quality education, access to quality health services and good infrastructure. One might not think the quality of a local school would matter in these circumstances, but it does. If a company is planning to send its executives to live in an area, it will want to be sure that those executives' family members can access quality education. Those things need to be put in place outside of Dublin. We see every day that Dublin is choking. We need to move out into rural Ireland and the regions. The only way to do that is to invest in the regions. There would be a return on such investment. If €100 million were spent on the road network in rural Ireland, it would have a return. It is probable that 40% of that expenditure would come back into the Exchequer within a year between VAT, excise duty, income tax and all the other things that happen. That is not counting the money that workers would spend in local shops and communities when they are building such roads.

The Government needs to understand that these are not costs. In most cases, these are investments which will have a return greater than the cost initially laid out. Even in the medium and long term, they will have a significant benefit because they unlock potential. County Leitrim has the largest number of graduates per head of population. More people per head of population in County Leitrim go on to third level education than in any other county, yet there are practically no jobs for graduates there. That needs to change. If we could change that, we could revolutionise what rural Ireland is about.

The Bill is about putting such a commitment into legislation. It is about changing it from something we just say is a great idea. We can say we have all these problems and we can all bitch away about them but there is nothing at the end of it. This Bill provides an opportunity to do something about this.

I appeal to the Minister of State and the Government to withdraw its amendment and allow the Bill continue to Committee Stage. There we can work out the problems, the little details and the tweaking. We will co-operate and work together. If the Government does so, when it leaves office, whenever that will be, it can point to this as a success not just for rural Ireland but for urban Ireland as well. As was pointed out by many this evening, urban Ireland is choking. This is an opportunity to do something for the whole country, which is good, positive and will make a difference.

I commend the Bill to the House. Hopefully, when it is voted on next Thursday, we will get it through.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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In accordance with Standing Order 70(2), the division is postponed until the weekly division time on Thursday, 11 May 2017.