Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

Tuigeann siad "airgead" iontach maith.

I doubt there were more than three words in the speech which were not easily understandable. We have a policy of writing i gcaint na ndaoine – in the way ordinary people speak Irish. However, if there is a technical concept which has to be explained, it is only right to encourage the import or creation of terms which match the new words coming into the English language.

I accept that one word we must be very careful about is "sustainable". I worry that every time one wants to accomplish something in a rural area the concept of sustainability is always at the top of the agenda. I never see it being mentioned in respect of urban areas. If any lifestyle is sustainable, it is more likely to be the rural than the urban. City dwellers depend on others to provide their food. It is important that we prevent the use of the word "sustainability" from becoming another excuse to fail to make provisions in rural areas. I notice that while all the cars in the cities are sustainable, none of the cars in the country are such.

I am a little mesmerised by the theory that limits have to be placed on the number of tourists who can be brought to the Aran Islands. The islanders who might make an economic gain should be the arbiters of whether they must limit the number of customers they have each year. When the DART service was suspended for three days to upgrade it to bring more passengers into Dublin, the O'Connell Street Chamber of Commerce and others went wild because they were going to lose business. Despite the great number of customers they have, they cannot afford to lose a theoretical amount of business. I am of the opinion that if the DART stops for three days, people will use their cars. If this argument can be made in Dublin, we must recognise the need to allow business to grow reasonably on the islands if the populations there are to be sustained. To fail to do that is to ask people in a vulnerable economic situation, who earn their livings over four or five months of the year if they are lucky, to curtail their businesses in a way we would never ask of people in a major city.