Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House. I am delighted to have this opportunity to discuss something that means so much to me. I completely understand the context of the plan and the Minister's work, with regard to the bankruptcy of our country and the giveaway of €64 billion to the banks, which could have been spent on rural Ireland. Not only this, but we also have the €7 billion we must pay each year to service the debt which could be used to develop rural Ireland and to do what is needed.

I was very much looking forward to this plan, as somebody who cares so passionately about rural Ireland. I can see the Minister also cares and it means an awful lot to her. I was disappointed with the number of actions in it. I am used to developing plans, and having this many actions in a plan dilutes it somewhat. I would have preferred to have seen five real priorities for rural Ireland. I have gone through every line and word of the plan and it is a compendium of cross-departmental schemes and measures which had already been documented. When I read the plan, I was looking for the big idea but I did not find one. I chaired Stand Up for the West, and Sinn Féin's policy document, A New Deal for the West, has really good ideas. The Minister's plan disappointed me.

The Minister is in the driving seat at present, but the plan did not deliver and it did not inspire me. I will go through some of the reasons I was not inspired. There have been ten years of absolutely massive cuts to capital spending, which have impacted on rural Ireland. The author of the plan did not grasp the gravity of what is happening and what has happened over recent years in rural Ireland. It did not show me the Government is really genuinely listening to the ordinary people. It is almost shocking that, to date, there has not been cross-departmental co-operation and concentration on what is needed for rural Ireland. I certainly welcome it but it is late, and it is a shocking indictment of the Government and previous Governments that they did not have a cross-governmental concentrated effort to address the seriousness of the crisis in rural Ireland.

The Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport has stated €3 billion was needed to get the secondary roads up to standard, but last year's budget provided €298 million, which comes nowhere near to addressing it. The decline of rural Ireland has accelerated under this and previous Governments. We know the broadband speeds in many areas in rural Ireland are 36 times slower than other areas, but we see the plan will not be implemented until 2022. This does not suggest the urgency needed. I have major problems trying to run my office at home. I never know whether I will be able to send an e-mail. When we speak about jobs we never equate or think about the jobs that are lost because of not having this connectivity which is vital to establish any business in rural Ireland. Will the Minister please see whether the national broadband plan can be accelerated? I ask her to start from the outside in because towns that already have a standard of broadband are returned to time and again while other areas are left with no connectivity whatsoever. I would appreciate it if the plan were implemented from the outside in rather than from the inside out.

I welcome the aspiration for 135,000 jobs, but many jobs have been lost and we do not count the jobs that have been lost. If I were in Government, I would make a rule that I would never announce jobs until they were ready to be recruited. Jobs were announced in Mayo but six, 12 and 24 months later there were still no jobs. We have all the fanfare of the announcements but they do not materialise into real jobs for real people with real wages.

I have some problems with how jobs are counted, including with regard to IDA Ireland concentration. If we look at how jobs were counted previously, there was 60% and 40% concentration and anything outside Dublin and Cork was recorded as a percentage. Now Cork has been removed so the percentages look bigger. It is about a perception that there are more jobs. It reminds me of 2013 when the Government lauded itself for the creation of 61,000 jobs. When I examined it, I found 28,000 of them were to be in agriculture but they never happened. I rang up the CSO in Cork and said they must be overrun by tractors down there because the jobs certainly were not in Mayo. It would have equated to 100 jobs in agriculture a day, which was nonsense. The line was pedalled out again and again and it was never challenged by the media. The media have a role in all of this to really challenge some of the figures put forward. Obviously, it was only an adjustment in the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine which was a nonsense. To count them as new jobs is lying to the people.

Businesses continue to close in the west because of the high overheads, reduced footfall and how rates are calculated. I completely welcome foreign direct investment and it plays a major role in a small open economy such as ours, but our indigenous businesses are still being ignored. There is nothing in the plan that will substantially make a difference to small businesses in rural Ireland.

With regard to local employment offices, we need to look at trying to sustain existing businesses and keep them open rather than chasing around here, there and everywhere throughout the world, looking for the people with the shiny shoes to come in and then pay them reverence. We ignore our own people much of the time when a small intervention could make all the difference and could save jobs and businesses. All we want in areas, such as my area of Belmullet, is small industry that would pay people at the end of the week so they would have a wage packet to spend in the local economy.

I completely disagree with bringing the Leader programme under the local authorities. The people who gathered throughout the country were ignored. The Minister stated there was extra spending and projects through Leader, but it is a falsity when we look at a county such as Mayo where €9 million has been taken from the Leader budget. There is a delay in the evaluations and only 25 Leader projects have been approved since it was announced last September. I can see a real glut happening there. The Minister needs to look at Pobal with regard to putting in place extra staff. If there is a backlog of three weeks, it will continue to increase and those promoting projects cannot get them done. There is a real issue with planning permission for Leader projects. Some county development plans stipulate that enterprises cannot be set up where there is no public sewage schemes. In many of the areas where jobs are desperately needed, there is no public sewage scheme. I ask for some flexibility on this issue.

I have not touched on health, but the Minister knows the Taoiseach has stated University Hospital Galway is not fit for purpose, and it is not. People cannot even park cars there and there are many cancellations. I ask the Minister to look at another site, such as Merlin Park, where a proper hospital for the west can be built so people can access health care. There are some opportunities for the Minister in terms of farming and payment equality. I know it is not her direct responsibility but the delays in the GLAS payments and the inequality in terms of payments can be somewhat addressed in the review of the areas of natural constraints, ANC, scheme. I ask the Minister to take a special interest in it so that there is equality and to examine the CAP and how its review can address the disadvantage for smaller farmers.

I could make suggestions for three hours. I know the Minister is trying her best but this plan falls way short. Nevertheless, my party and I will continue to work with the Minister in every way possible because I passionately believe that the development of rural Ireland is the solution to the national economic sustainability of our country. If people were to regard rural Ireland not as a problem but as a robust and sustainable solution, we would all be much better off.