James Heffernan (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I support the call for a debate about rural Ireland and particularly about the funding for rural regeneration that was announced last week. That announcement was a slap in the face for rural Ireland. I worked out that it would not provide a decent wheelbarrow per parish, never mind rural regeneration. There are houses in the middle of towns and villages across the country that are vacant and falling down. If we are serious about housing and rural regeneration, that is something that must be addressed with investment rather than some of the harebrained schemes being proposed by the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government.

I also wish to refer to the capital programme that was announced yesterday. A lot of it is stuff we have heard before; it has simply been repackaged and presented as something new. People from my area are sick and tired of hearing about the Adare bypass. We have been hearing about it for the last 20 years or more, but I welcome the fact that apparently we will see it come to fruition this time. The biggest infrastructural project that must be undertaken in this country - the lack of which is holding my region back - is a motorway that connects Limerick and Cork. These are our second and third largest cities and the fact that they are not connected via a motorway is something that sticks in the craw of those living in the region and holds the region back, particularly in Limerick city and its hinterland. In order to attract investment, we need that kind of connectivity. Yet again, however, such a motorway has not been announced. I have presented a motorway project to the Minister, a different form of public-private partnership that could have delivered that infrastructure, and I am very disappointed that it was not included in the capital programme announced yesterday.

Regarding the issue raised by Senator Paul Coghlan earlier, I spoke to staff at my local radio station recently. Local radio stations are competing on a very uneven playing field in the context of the national broadcaster and its receipt of television licence fee funding. The service provided by Live95 FM in Limerick, particularly by Joe Nash, with his "Limerick Today" programme, and by Liam Aherne, who covers sport, is second to none.They support local communities and promote local festivals and initiatives across the board. They give airtime to issues of huge concern to people in local areas that the national media, and RTE in particular, do not appear to give a blind bit of notice to. The broadcasting charge is something the Minister, Deputy Alex White, will have to tackle. I support Senator Paul Coghlan's call to have the Minister attend the House for that debate.