Michelle Mulherin (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Thank you. I very much welcome the provisions for the farming and agrifood sectors and rural Ireland generally. One of the biggest challenges facing us is the fact that people are leaving rural Ireland, leaving the land and moving to cities. This is not just a problem for Ireland but also for Europe and the rest of the world. People are leaving rural areas which is resulting in the creation of super cities, with pressure on housing, schools and so forth.

We have an opportunity to develop a model which makes living in rural Ireland sustainable. We must support sustainable development in rural Ireland in areas like tourism, agrifood and so forth. I welcome the increase in the rural development programme and in particular the payments to farmers by way of the €25 million sheep scheme and the €211 million increase for the green low-carbon agri-environment scheme, GLAS. I also welcome the low-cost loans that will be made available to farmers. There are a number of other supports which will particularly affect people from the area where I am based, where there are a lot of marginal farms. There are approximately 8,500 farmers in receipt of farm assist payments and the cuts to that scheme have been reversed. I also welcome the increases to the rural social scheme. All of these will have a very significant impact. I know that we will have further debates on this but the future of rural Ireland and the vision for rural Ireland is something we must press on with. We must get real results or people will continue to leave rural Ireland.