Denis Landy (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I warmly welcome the Minister to the House. Like me, she comes from and believes in rural Ireland and believes that rural Ireland must grow and prosper so that our society is a better place in which to live and bring up families. I acknowledge, as did the Minister on the launch of the plan, that this is the first time all of the actions for rural development have been pulled together in one document, which is important. Leader companies and others have done great work on rural Ireland but it is as if they are operating in isolation from each other. Until it is laid out in one document, which the Minister did, one does not see the pieces fitting together. I am sincere in my acknowledgement of that fact.

I perused the document when it was issued and I felt a lot of the document was pulling together announcements that had already been made. I was criticised for saying that at the time. As a result, like Senator Conway-Walsh, I went through the document literally page by page. To test what I had said and to defend myself, I decided to set out a number of parliamentary questions for various Ministers, including the Minister herself, to be tabled by Deputies Joan Burton and Willie Penrose. In the time that is allowed to me, I will try to encapsulate the result of that exercise and stand up my initial comment which was that there was very little new in the document although I acknowledge that the document did pull it all together. I will do it by dealing with specific actions. I am sorry to say that I will not deal with them in any particular order but as they came within my radar.

Action 20 relates to the post office network. The parliamentary reply was that there would be a monitoring role of the post office hub working group, which is already in place, to see how it was progressing and what would be done. Action 23 relates to the setting up of a public banking network that would be based on the Kiwi model or the Sparkasse model which has been in place in Germany for 200 years and is in operation in 40 countries across the world. For two years this organisation has been trying to get support to kick-start a third banking force in rural Ireland that is specifically aimed at providing loan supports to the SME sector. We were told that the matter would be dealt with by a number of groups that are already in place but Irish Rural Link, which initiated this, and the representatives of Sparkasse were excluded. I acknowledge that since then there was a debate with the Minister of State, Deputy Ring, last week in the Dáil on the issue and it has been announced that the Department of Finance is prepared to meet representatives of Sparkasse next week. However, they need to have their feet under the table to explain the concept that they wish to bring to the country and not have other people decide if it is a good idea.

Action 50 is the next action on which a parliamentary question was tabled. This relates to the announcement of social inclusion measures to the tune of €37.5 million. It was clear from the first line of the answer that this money was announced in 2015 and that it is only utilising that money.

From the start I homed in on action 6. This relates to the concept that the Minister discussed on the Sean O'Rourke programme, which is the conversion of disused shops to residential properties. Again, the response to the parliamentary question is that there is no detail available yet and that the Government is hoping a working group can develop how it will happen and how the planning process will be avoided, which means councillors will be excluded at local level. Therefore, there was no answer to that question either.

Action 240 relates to an area in which I have a great interest, having been a former worker in the telecommunications industry. It relates to the municipal area networks. We asked the specifics of how the networks were going to be improved. The answer received was that there will be a review of what is already in place. No specifics were given on who was using them or the cost of using them. There was no detail whatsoever. Actions 251 to 254 dealt mainly with rural transport initiatives. In his reply to Deputy Burton, the Minister, Deputy Shane Ross, stated that there was an increase. However, the increase of €2 million was only to cover the normal increases that would happen on a year-to-year basis. The other questions were referred to the National Transport Authority.

On a question relating to airports, there was no commitment or answer relating to Waterford Airport, which is the one nearest to me.

Action 76, which was the announcement that nine counties would have their commercial rates revalued, was of great interest to me, until I discovered that the same process that has been in place for almost 200 years would be implemented in, or foisted on, nine more counties. In one county, County Roscommon, there was an average increase of 44%. Therefore, there was no news there other than what is already in place.

I commend the Minister of State, Deputy Seán Canney, for taking positive action. The group he set up on the Shannon issue had its first meeting in recent weeks.

I support fully what the Minister is trying to do for rural Ireland. However, we have an action plan with 275 actions. The day after it was announced, I stated that it is not possible to implement 275 actions. What we needed was a plan with seven to ten major actions. I wish the Minister well in her endeavours and will work with her. I have ideas which I would like to discuss with her. I am not coming in here to condemn the Minister. We all have to work together but what is in the plan is a pulling together of actions that are already in place rather than new initiatives, which is what we had hoped to see.

I will leave it at that and thank the Minister again.