Paula Butterly: Defending Rural Ireland - Housing & Transport

Minister, I welcome our rural future policy consultation process and it's a further step to re-addressing and re-balancing that regional balance which is so vital for all of us here in this country and it's absolutely essential if we are to provide better services, better infrastructure for not just our rural areas but also our rural villages and towns. Now I've listened to comments over the last 10-15 minutes from the opposition and they've spoken about how we have failed rural Ireland and how we have let rural Ireland down, yet Deputy O'Mara pointed to a number of grants that have been available and I can also point to a number of grants and policies that we have established over the last 10 years that has ensured that rural Ireland is not dying, that ensures that rural Ireland is not dead and that will ensure that we will always have rural Ireland back. Let us look at the Sports Capital Grants, let's look at the Rural and Regeneration Development Fund, let's look at the rollout of broadband that has really, really brought remote working to rural towns, to rural areas and takes the stress off a lot of families on their daily commutes which now only maybe exists for one or two days. That doesn't point to a failure in rural Ireland, that points to success and I refute completely what the opposition has said about our policy and our commitment to rural Ireland. But there is always room for improvement and I look at County Louth and I see that when it comes to transport, I would agree with Deputy Wall, there seems to be a slowdown in the process and the rollout of rural transport. County Louth still doesn't have any links from east to west of the county, so that means the villages of Clacherhead, Dunlare and Ardee cannot connect with each other except by car. Surely in this day and age, surely in the county, which is the second most densely populated area in the country, should have a link that links a rural transport that links from east to west. We have also spoken about housing and I do concur with most of my colleagues in relation to rural housing. We have been restrictive in allowing families who have been born and reared in their areas not to be facilitated in a large number of cases to live within their communities, and this is not limited only to farming families. I, as the daughter of a farmer, was very lucky. I got a site and I built my bungalow, but many of my friends within that community were refused. But they have had the same rights as I have. They've grown up and they have continued to live, or wanted to live rather, in Tocher Parish, but yet were denied it because of restrictive policies in regards to rural housing. We must readdress that, because it's not just about creating a community that will continue into the future and that will thrive. It is also about keeping that community connected and united. They are the people that not only service the clubs and offer their time and volunteer in the clubs, they're also the people who actually take care of their families. Because as we know, so many families have to row in where we have not been able to provide the supports. There are families providing care to their parents and to their siblings day in, day out, seven days a week. There's never a Saturday or a Sunday off. They are providing those services where we have not been able to provide them yet. So these people in the communities are absolutely essential, and they do have a right, in my opinion, to be able to build a house in the community that they have lived. And we must readdress that balance. But we must also address the balance of how we are dealing with housing in regards to the older people. We must have a policy that is proactive, progressive, and very, very fast. Our population is ageing, and we will very shortly, within a space of 10, 15 years, have an ageing population where their housing needs are not being met. Now we have rural towns and rural villages, and we have provided a series of grants to regenerate these towns and villages. But we also have to think about reviving our town centres and bringing people to live there, not just young people, older people. Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could go into the village of Dunlare or Intarity or Castle Bellingham, and because of the way we have changed the policy and have facilitated through incentives and through careful planning, that older people could literally walk out their front door and go and get the paper and meet the people in their community? Because isolation isn't just... it's a fear that many older people have. So by doing this, we provide community and services. To walk down to your GP would be a wonderful thing for many older people. And we also hear from our constituents that very often they're living in houses that have outgrown them, that they're tottering about in the houses, and they're there on their own, and they would like to move, but they don't want to move out of their community. So we must address that policy in tandem with our rural housing policy, because it's not just about the young families who will support their families, it's also by ensuring that people living in their homes longer stay healthier and live better. So we must also address that policy, Minister. In regards then also to playgrounds, thank you.