Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

That only applies in September. Did Senator Norris not know Saturday next is 1 October? There are many who want to travel by train and extra trains are being put on from Mayo to Dublin to bring supporters up for the match. However, the elderly and those with disabilities are not allowed to use their passes on those trains. They are the same trains and tracks that are publicly funded, yet such supporters are being excluded. It is an important issue that needs to be addressed by the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport in order that it does not happen again to the supporters of other counties because this discrimination cannot be allowed to happen.

I note the launch this morning of the rural action plan by the Department of Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs. There was a focus on what can be done to attract more employment to rural areas and to encourage people to remain living in rural areas, yet at the same time we learn that an area near Ballina is without a broadband service since Monday last. On an ongoing basis, we are left without mobile phone coverage and without broadband coverage. I have been contacted recently by a business in Roscommon that cannot open, even though it has the potential to create quite a number of jobs, because the proprietor cannot get the required connectivity. At the briefing this morning, we were told that the broadband services are the remit of the national broadband plan. The bottom line is there needs to be more co-ordination between the respective Departments of the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Deputy Naughten and the Minister Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Deputy Humphreys, as one is dependent on the other. It is ridiculous that whole areas of Mayo and the west continue to be blue spots, that is, areas without broadband coverage. There is no point in having plans to bring employment and investment to areas when we do not have these basic facilities.