Results 2,021-2,040 of 28,255 for speaker:Éamon Ó Cuív

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Social Protection: Public Service Performance Report 2022: Department of Rural and Community Development (12 Jul 2023)

Éamon Ó Cuív: There had been a recognition that as well as needing SICAP, areas of concentrated disadvantage had such concentrated problems that further action was needed across government but somewhere down the line - in 2011 or 2012 - the Department of Rural and Community Development decided to stop the programme that was specifically focused in those areas. I do not blame the Department because it was...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Social Protection: Public Service Performance Report 2022: Department of Rural and Community Development (12 Jul 2023)

Éamon Ó Cuív: If there is a cross-departmental group chaired by the Minister, it must be totally focused on these highly deprived areas and making sure they are all pulling their weight. I have come to admire self-help within communities. One thing struck me in the past. I remember there was discussion about a certain very deprived community about which there was a lot of publicity, and the first thing...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Social Protection: Public Service Performance Report 2022: Department of Rural and Community Development (12 Jul 2023)

Éamon Ó Cuív: Returning to the mountain access scheme, is there an individual written agreement between each farmer and the Department, or some relevant agency, specifying what is agreed? In other words, first, dealing with the insurance, has every farmer received a copy of the insurance? Where I live, they certainly have not received it. This refers to the area that is covered, that is open. It is no...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Social Protection: Public Service Performance Report 2022: Department of Rural and Community Development (12 Jul 2023)

Éamon Ó Cuív: Yes, I know, Mount Gable or Binn Shléibhe.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Social Protection: Public Service Performance Report 2022: Department of Rural and Community Development (12 Jul 2023)

Éamon Ó Cuív: The one part of the equation is that these landowners do not have anything saying what is going to be done by the Department and what the Department is asking for in return is to give access to the hill. That does not seem to have got down to the individual farmer. The Department may be talking to groups but it is not talking to the people who own this land outright, each one of them. They...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Social Protection: Public Service Performance Report 2022: Department of Rural and Community Development (12 Jul 2023)

Éamon Ó Cuív: My apologies but can we talk about-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Social Protection: Public Service Performance Report 2022: Department of Rural and Community Development (12 Jul 2023)

Éamon Ó Cuív: What is this about an established group because this is news to me?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Social Protection: Public Service Performance Report 2022: Department of Rural and Community Development (12 Jul 2023)

Éamon Ó Cuív: This is something to support the farmers rather than saying to them that they must provide access to their land in return for us providing this insurance policy.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Social Protection: Public Service Performance Report 2022: Department of Rural and Community Development (12 Jul 2023)

Éamon Ó Cuív: And who established them.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Social Protection: Public Service Performance Report 2022: Department of Rural and Community Development (12 Jul 2023)

Éamon Ó Cuív: Did the farmers establish these groups or who established them?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Social Protection: Public Service Performance Report 2022: Department of Rural and Community Development (12 Jul 2023)

Éamon Ó Cuív: This is crucial because it was hoped when Comhairle na Tuaithe was set up that we might get a good working model where there was good agreement. There was such agreement. It was about providing access as long as everybody complied with all of these rules, etc. The land holders were then indemnified and would allow free access, specifically, to be publicised. This approach would then be...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Social Protection: Public Service Performance Report 2022: Department of Rural and Community Development (12 Jul 2023)

Éamon Ó Cuív: I have one more question. The CLÁR programme is focused on population loss in the most rural areas and those areas where there has been the highest depopulation since 1926. Will the success of the rural development policies, including CLÁR, be measured against the census figures to see if, compared with the increase nationally, we are getting less population growth or continuing...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Social Protection: Public Service Performance Report 2022: Department of Rural and Community Development (12 Jul 2023)

Éamon Ó Cuív: I refer to the situation relative to the general increase in population. In other words, if there was a 5% increase in the population of CLÁR areas and the average national increase has been approximately 7% or 8%, then these areas are still falling behind in relative context. If the population in these areas is actually declining, then we have got a crisis. We should be putting up a...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Social Protection: Public Service Performance Report 2022: Department of Rural and Community Development (12 Jul 2023)

Éamon Ó Cuív: Would it be possible for us to get the maps?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Social Protection: Public Service Performance Report 2022: Department of Rural and Community Development (12 Jul 2023)

Éamon Ó Cuív: These are obviously CSO data, but people previously doing interpreting for us at a granular level were from Maynooth University.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Social Protection: Public Service Performance Report 2022: Department of Rural and Community Development (12 Jul 2023)

Éamon Ó Cuív: There is no point, however, going back five years. We need to go back and take a period of ten or 15 years.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Social Protection: Public Service Performance Report 2022: Department of Rural and Community Development (12 Jul 2023)

Éamon Ó Cuív: I agree with the Cathaoirleach on that point. My other point, though, is that if we went back to the period from 2006 to 2011, we would find that the population in most areas was rising. From 2011 to 2016, then, there was a decline and from 2016 to 2022, there was an increase nationally. We must, therefore, keep indexing these data over a longer period because we get ups and downs in the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Social Protection: Public Service Performance Report 2022: Department of Rural and Community Development (12 Jul 2023)

Éamon Ó Cuív: That gives you one fact. It does not give you the real facts, as Mr. Mulherin found out the week before last. The other metric that is massive on islands is the number of sailings that cannot take place in the winter because of the weather. Obviously, if people are living on an island 365 days a year and that is where their permanent home is, which is what we want, they still need to be in...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Social Protection: Public Service Performance Report 2022: Department of Rural and Community Development (12 Jul 2023)

Éamon Ó Cuív: I am saying we should have both. We need the total access because that is the lifeblood with the tourists.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: International Protection (11 Jul 2023)

Éamon Ó Cuív: There is an awful lot of information there but the one thing I am still not clear on, is the Minister of State said 13,661 applications came in last year. I think was the figure he gave. He did not tell me at this moment in time exactly how many applications the Department has live or on hand. That is key because some could still be there from the previous year, and some from last year's...