Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Members for their support, their comments and their constructive suggestions this evening. All of us are united in wanting the best future for our rural and urban communities around the country. That is the reason my Department was established by the Taoiseach in July. It is the fundamental objective of my Department, and I am confident that with this strong mandate we will achieve much.

I will respond to some of the issues raised by the Senators. I will not be able to respond to them all. Senator Gallagher mentioned the action plan. I have tried to make the action plan framework stretch across Government. My job is to make sure that every Government decision and every Minister is accountable to me at the Cabinet table. That is what I am there for, and why the Department was set up. I have my own functions, delegation powers and budget, but at the same time I have to make sure that every Minister is accountable to me at the Cabinet and also to rural Ireland. That is the job I have to do. People will say that I will get blamed for everything negative but will not get any credit for anything that is positive. That is fine.

The senior alert scheme was mentioned. That scheme has worked very well. Senator Higgins also raised the issue and spoke about the campaign about community. She is correct in what she said. I launched the senior alert scheme in October and there was a tremendous response to it, simply because we went out and advertised the scheme. Today, I had to put a further €400,000 into the scheme because it is such a success. I compliment everybody involved, including those in my own Department and those in Pobal. We went out on the road to publicise it, and I am sure many elderly people are feeling safer at home tonight because they have that scheme.

Senator Ó Céidigh has gone, but I thank him for his kind comments. He is somebody who really understands rural life and business. He created many jobs over the years and worked very hard to try to keep rural Ireland alive. I compliment him on his comments. He is very job-orientated, and he is correct to say that if we are going to have people living and working in rural Ireland, we have to create jobs and infrastructure. We must try to help the families that are going to live in rural Ireland. Senator Ó Céidigh has been doing that all his life, and has tried to ensure that people are kept in employment in rural areas.

Senator Conway-Walsh comes from my area, and she knows what we have done over the past year.I will not give the Senator a history lesson tonight. The Wild Atlantic Way, the greenways and the announcement regarding Ballycroy National Park last week will all help to create jobs.

To address some of the issues Senator Conway-Walsh raised, she is quite right on broadband. It is the most important piece of infrastructure we need in rural Ireland. Broadband is needed. In my Department, I have only one role and part to play in the matter. We put funding in place to ensure that there was a dedicated officer in every county council. That person is there to help overcome any difficulties when the broadband team rolls into town, whether they have to do with opening roads, dealing with the county council or dealing with the State agencies. They ensure that there is a common plan across the country so that we can get the teams in and develop the infrastructure. I will give the Senator a few figures. I know she is being critical of broadband not coming quickly enough. Of course I would like to see it coming faster. I would like to see it in many more parts of rural Ireland. To be fair, there has been €2.5 billion of commercial investment in broadband in recent years. Some €1.6 million is spent on broadband every day.

The Senator does not hear from the people who are getting broadband. Why would she? They are happy when they get it. She only hears from the people who do not have it, as do I. It is my job, the Senator's job and everybody else's job to make sure that the commercial companies are brought in and roll out the broadband as quickly as possible. The State also will be obliged to subsidise and intervene where the commercial companies will not operate. Of course the companies will take the low-hanging fruit and the most profitable areas available. They will not go into the places the Senator and I would like them to. We are going to have to set up a tender process and subsidise the roll-out. We will have to put it out for public procurement. Senator Higgins spoke about public procurement and I will speak about that in respect of the social inclusion and community activation programme, SICAP, in a minute. Public procurement must be carried out or we will end up in the High Court as we did in the past in respect of the mobile phone licence. We do not want that to happen. I want to see broadband giving people opportunities.

Senator Conway-Walsh also mentioned the local improvement schemes, LIS. I will tell the Senator quite directly that another Minister was in another Department for 17 months and he did not deliver. I have only been in my office since July and I already have spent €17 million on the LIS. I will put in on the record of this House that I challenge the other Department to match my funding for next year. I will also challenge the local authorities because they actually charge us to administer the LIS. Even though their staff are getting paid on the ground, they still charge the Department to administer that scheme. They should be taking some money out of the rates they receive and putting it into the LIS. If we had a three-way game, more money would be going into the LIS.

The Senator is correct. Many people are paying their water charges because they have to. They have their own water supplies and have to pay into their own schemes. They pay their property tax and their other taxes. They are entitled to have a road into their homes. That is why I set up the LIS. The Senator criticised me. I will not say "criticise" as that is not fair. She made a comment about me taking money out of Leader and putting it into LIS.