Peter Roche: Rural Funding, Planning and Local Services
Peter Roche speaks in a parliamentary debate today about the pressures facing rural communities, focusing on underfunding in County Galway, planning barriers, rising costs and the strain on local services. He urges attention to volunteers, local businesses and young couples who struggle to secure planning permission or access essential services.
Main concerns and demands
Peter Roche outlines the central issues for rural Ireland: chronic underfunding for councils, the growing cost burdens on local businesses, and obstacles in planning that affect young couples wanting to build homes. He warns that peripheral towns and villages risk losing population and capacity to apply for community funding unless policy changes.
Volunteers and funding streams
Roche pays tribute to the volunteers, community councils and development companies who repeatedly apply for RRDF, CCIS and sports capital funding. He highlights that much of rural improvement depends on this voluntary effort, and notes recent measures such as the My Future Fund have added financial pressure on local enterprises.
Services, connectivity and community life
He emphasises connectivity problems, public transport gaps, and access to GP and dental services as practical barriers to keeping young people in place. Roche connects these issues to the everyday life of communities - from local businesses to sports clubs - arguing rural health depends on both infrastructure and social cohesion.
Policy test for sustainability
Roche calls on future government decisions to be measured against sustainability: can small businesses and communities afford new burdens? He asks policymakers to be mindful of peripheral towns and villages when designing funding and planning rules, so that local growth and community life are supported rather than strained.
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Can I say firstly, Minister, I really welcome the debate we're having today and I suppose I would look forward maybe to two or three years' time when we can say well what benefits accrued as a consequence of all this debate because I think the real measure is in the action part of it. But like previous speakers I was sitting before I came into the chamber listening to a lot of the contributions and they were almost identical right across the line. You know when you come to talk about rural planning was one, housing was another and I suppose funding for councils was also another item that was referenced and in my own case in County Galway the underfunding is a really critical issue in that regard. And you know I have to say that I feel very blessed in many ways. I come from a small village in East Galway and we have a very good thriving community and it is because we have business people that really try hard and work hard. But like other contributions today one of the things that they are I suppose dug with I suppose is the ever increasing cost of insurance. Rates isn't a real issue. I think the My Future Fund was most recent in terms of an additional burden and all of those things really add pressures to local businesses. And I have to take my hat off to all of the volunteers right around the country that continue to make application for funding for the different rural schemes. Very often it's not businesses that do that it's rural volunteers, people that make up the community council, development companies and they continuously strive to have a better place to live for the people locally. And you know I have to say that one of the things that I'm really challenged about always is when I hear of young couples who have issues with regards to obtaining planning permission from the local authority. I think in some instances the cap on is really absent. And you know I have to say that in all this debate urban needs the rural economy to be good because the rural supports the urban and that's just the way it works. And you know connectivity is an issue obviously that we all have spoken about here today. I'd like to speak about in terms of you know public transport and I think access to services like GP and I think dental care. There's a whole host of things that really needs to. And of course fundamentally every community requires their young people to stay local, to build local because they need them to support the local football team, the local hurling team. And it's about stimulating that growth if you like and that movement within the communities that's fundamentally important to a lot of those people that are you know really really trying hard. I commend you Minister I will say because the number of times that you've been in the Social Protection Committee I can see the passion that you have in terms of promoting and supporting rural communities. And there was reference made earlier to the RRDF funding, to the CCIS funding, sports capital funding and all the funding that goes across the different streams with regards to where communities can obtain SAME to enhance and support and promote services within. And it's that very stimulation and that very growth if you like that encourages young people. By the way I like what I see in this village or whatever and that's where they want to build their first home. And in most instances where you have towns and villages, small towns and small villages on the peripheral, I can only speak for East Galway in this instance, I sometimes wonder and worry about the future that some of those communities have in terms of having the numbers of people to be able to make a successful application for any of the funding streams that I just mentioned. And I think we need to be mindful of those towns and villages on the periphery of any city or indeed any major town so as we can help and support them, be mindful of what their needs are. There was reference made and I have only 32 seconds. One of the things that we really need to be I suppose considering carefully is any additional burden on businesses in local villages whether it be the filling station, the takeaway, the pub, the restaurant or any of those that are struggling you might say in many regards but I think any decision that future governments make it should be along the lines of is it sustainable, can they afford it and if not let's not do it.
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