Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister is a man of many talents. Many people will not be aware that along the west coast, including a place in Deputy Dillon's constituency called An Ceann Ramhar, there are places where the tides come in, particularly at spring tides, or as they call them in Irish, rabharta. Nuair a bhíonn rabhartaí ann, they come in and the road becomes impassable. This could go on for three days at a time. At every high tide - morning or evening or whatever time the high tide comes - the road becomes impassible. It happens regularly in a place in my constituency called Cuan na Loinge, where 14 houses are virtually on an island when this happens. It does not happen every day of the year because as Members know, the tide varies, but obviously with rising sea levels it is going to happen more and more into the future.

In the case of Cuan na Loinge there are 14 houses, and in the case near Westport there are three houses and a business. The reality is you either do these road projects or you do not. I remember one time funding a pier in Deputy Dillon's constituency for a family of three generations who were living on an island. At the time I think it cost €160,000. There was big headline in a British newspaper about the money that was spent. My counter-argument was that if I had to relocate that family onto the mainland, which would involve taking them off the island, giving them land and all the rest, I would have no change out of the money that was spent and I would have dislocated them. They still live there, many years later. Sometimes things have to be done that economists will advise against, but human common sense will bid us to do.

I see this as forming part of the role of the Department of Rural and Community Development, although it could come out of roads money under the Department of Transport. There are some places along the coast - for example, in Clew Bay - that are recognised as islands because this phenomenon happens every day, but other areas do not have this recognition. In my view, the roads need to be raised in all coastal communities where there is a problem of access and egress during certain high tides. A special fund should be put in place in the Department of Rural and Community Development to provide annual funding until this problem is resolved. It could be done under the CLÁR scheme. It is one of these things that once it is done, it is done forever. In the greater scheme of national money, the cost is very small. I accept that the cost per house or the cost per individual looks big, but we need to do something about these areas. When we made these improvements in the past, once they were done we never heard complaints about them.

Maybe my colleague is aware of Clynish Island, where the new pier was a lifeline to a small community. Nobody ever begrudged what they got. I grew up in the city. How much is spent on a city street over 50 years or 100 years to provide water, to take away the sewage, to provide street lights, to clean and sweep the street and to do all the rest? Nobody ever sees that as a cost or a big cost per house. When it is done in a rural area, however, for some reason the costs always seem to be big.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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Words of wisdom, Deputy Ó Cuív.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Indeed, that is a prescient point about how some people, not the Ceann Comhairle, view the expenditure of money in urban Ireland versus rural Ireland. I thank Deputy Ó Cuív for raising the matter. I am happy to respond on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Rural and Community Development. The Deputy raised an interesting point about where the responsibility falls. That is not to shirk the broader issue. However, it is the view of the Department of Rural and Community Development that it has no remit in regard to funding for public roads and that this is an operational matter for the local authority. Further, it considers that each local authority is mandated to determine its own spending priorities, while having regard to locally identified needs. I am not taking that as shirking the issue but more to provide the Deputy with the response of officialdom. The CLÁR scheme to which the Deputy refers was originally launched in 2001. It provides funding for small-scale capital projects in rural areas that have experienced significant levels of depopulation. The scheme was closed in 2010 and was reopened in 2016. CLÁR, as originally constituted, leveraged existing funding streams across a wide variety of developments including group water schemes, roads and sports capital projects. The Deputy knows this well, obviously. CLÁR was restructured and reopened in 2016. The scheme now has an increased focus on collaboration between communities and local authorities. The leveraging aspect to which I referred has been discontinued. At present, the Department of Rural and Community Development has no plans to refocus the CLÁR scheme on leveraging funding or to open a specific strand for roads. That aside, the point the Deputy makes is a reality for communities in certain parts of the country including those he referenced in his own constituency in Connemara.

I am aware that the Government has established an interdepartmental group on managing coastal change to scope out an approach for the development of a national co-ordinated strategy to manage the projected impact of coastal change to our coastal communities, economy, heritage, culture and environment. The interdepartmental group is jointly chaired by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and the Office of Public Works, OPW, and is due to bring forward options and recommendations for the Government to consider. Coastal protection and localised flooding issues are matters, in the first instance, for the local authorities to investigate. In order to assist them, the OPW has undertaken a national assessment of coastal erosion, including erosion rates, under the Irish coastal protection strategy study. The results of this study have been published on the OPW website. These data now enable the country and its local authorities to develop appropriate plans to try to mitigate the issues that Deputy Ó Cuív has raised .

Local authorities can, of course, carry out coastal protection works using their own resources. They can also put forward proposals to relevant Departments to fund appropriate measures. I understand that interventions or hard defences have the potential to cause problems further along the coast. From my time as Minister of State with responsibility for the OPW, I remember it is always a concern that by fixing a problem on one part of the coast, it moves along to another part. What I am saying to Deputy Ó Cuív is that an interdepartmental group is looking at how to protect our coastal communities, how to protect from coastal erosion and how to address issues related to that. Obviously, access is a really big part of it. I will take back his suggestion to the Government in regard to CLÁR and how he believes that has potential to be of assistance here. I just wanted to share with him the view of the Department. Most appropriately, perhaps, I will take back to the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, and the Minister of State at the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform with responsibility for the OPW the suggestion, in the context of their work on that interdepartmental group, that consideration would be given to the issues the Deputy has raised around that access and the challenges it poses for local communities.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister for the answer. In regard to the leveraging of funding, I am broken-hearted that the Government does not see the merit in it. The biggest argument against investing in small, isolated pockets of rural Ireland is the cost-benefit analysis which dictates that if there is a certain amount of money, it will go to where the people are. The logic is that such an approach gives a better bang for the buck. A leveraged fund specifically for areas of low population - that is what CLÁR was founded on - could make it affordable for the mainline Department to provide its part of the funding. It would make up the difference and narrow the gap. I ask the Government to reconsider the merits of this type of co-funding because it certainly delivered in the past.

There is some misunderstanding in this regard. Perhaps I did not put the question correctly. In these cases it is not a matter of coastal erosion. The roads that are there work perfectly other than during a high tide. However, the tides can differ in height by metres between the spring tides of March and September and ordinary tides. They are also affected hugely by the wind. In the cases of which I speak, there is a serviceable road and everything is fine until a high tide causes the water to rise so that you cannot drive across it. It gets flooded. It is about flooding rather than having to build big coastal defences. In one case there is a half a mile of flat road with a wall on the side that needs to be raised by about a metre. It is as simple as that but I was told it would cost €500,000. If that is what it takes, that is what it takes. There is a good business in the area as well as a few houses. In another case there are 14 houses with the same problem on a much shorter stretch of road that passes through a hollow and up again.

I certainly will take on board what the Minister said. He has given me a good lead today. I am interested to hear about the interdepartmental group. Perhaps it will consider including access as one of the issues it will tackle around the coast. One can only imagine what it is like living in a house and getting up in the morning to find the tide is in and the children cannot go to school. I would have loved that to happen when I was in school. Nowadays, however, the children want to go to school and the parents want to get them there. They are all very serious about it. The situation for people affected is just not workable and liveable. I thank the Minister for his words of wisdom. I will listen carefully to his supplementary reply.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy makes an important point about cost-benefit analyses. This has been a bugbear of mine in my constituency for a long time. There are parts of certain rural communities, including some in County Wicklow, that will never measure up to a cost-benefit analysis that is based on an urban area. The Deputy poses an interesting challenge, to the system and to the Government, as to how we can have a more nuanced understanding of cost versus benefit, with the need sometimes to have the emphasis as much on the word "benefit" as on the word "cost". It should go without saying that the Government absolutely appreciates how important access, including access roads, is in enabling people able to go about their lives and pursue their livelihood. The Deputy spoke about people trying to get to school, college, work and everywhere else. This is a particular issue for farm families and others in rural areas.

The interdepartmental group I referenced is the best vehicle to take this issue forward. There is a commitment under the action plan for rural Ireland, Our Rural Future, that the group, officially called the interdepartmental group on managing coastal change, will finalise and submit its report, with options and recommendations for managing coastal change, to the Government this year. As the Deputy noted, the issue he raised is not, strictly speaking, about coastal erosion, but it does relate to coastal activity. We will see whether it can find a home within the interdepartmental group's exploration of issues. Another avenue for addressing the matter is the minor works schemes operated by the OPW. Colleagues in the Department who prepared this note have reminded me that this is a useful funding source for local authorities.

I undertake to take this issue back to the Minister for Rural and Community Development, under whose remit lies Our Rural Future, and the Minister of State with responsibility for the OPW. I will ask them both to keep it in mind in the context of the work of the interdepartmental group and to keep in close contact on the matter with Deputy Ó Cuív.