We are here discussing the consultation process, but if we are being honest about it, rural Ireland does not lack for consultation or for strategies and plans. What it actually lacks is delivery, urgency and alignment across Government policy. This is where the Government has failed. The Minister is the one tasked with rural-proofing this Government. He is meant to be the voice at the Cabinet table defending rural Ireland, so this is a fair question to ask him. Where was Our Rural Future when the national development plan doubled down on urban concentration and left rural communities fighting for basic investment? Where was the Minister when housing policies stalled again and again and rural housing delivery was effectively frozen in large parts of the country, an Ghaeltacht san áireamh? Where was the Minister when budget decisions reduced investment in rural development, including cuts to LEADER? Where was the Minister when families in rural Ireland were hit first and hardest by the fuel crisis, calls for meaningful support were ignored and workers, farmers, contractors and hauliers were being demonised? Where was the Minister and this policy when fishing communities faced devastating quota cuts? Where was Our Rural Future when post offices were being closed right, left and centre, when GP clinics were being closed, when the, at this stage, annual school transport chaos was unleashed across the State every August and September, when LEADER funding was being cut, when local roads budgets failed to keep pace with construction inflation, when ambulances and gardaí were rarely available on time and when a generation was locked out of home ownership and sent packing to Dublin or Dubai? Rural residents have seen no evidence of a Minister or indeed a strategy at the Cabinet table successfully arguing its case or actually standing up for communities. The reality is this; there is a growing gap between what Government says about rural Ireland and what it actually does. Last week, former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said the quiet part out loud. In doing so, he belied an approach that has underpinned Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael’s attitude to rural communities for far too long in this State. The consultation paper published last year contained no targets, timelines, funding commitments or clear delivery mechanisms. It asked communities for their views but did not set out how any of these things will be delivered. That reflects a wider problem as far as I am concerned. The programme for Government, national planning framework, national development plan and housing plan are not aligned with the stated ambition of the consultation, the last strategy or indeed the Minister's strategy of supporting rural Ireland. In fact, any objective analysis would suggest they are working against it. The OECD report on the old rural policy made this clear. It has identified centralised decision making, weak local delivery capacity and a lack of accountability as structural weaknesses in Ireland’s rural policy. It also rightly identifies housing as a central determinant of rural development. That is a core issue that has long been ignored. Housing is now the defining challenge for rural Ireland. Communities are losing young people, population decline is accelerating, local services, schools and clubs are under pressure, the GAA’s own national demographics report confirms that many rural communities are already experiencing decline that is undermining their long-term sustainability, and yet housing delivery remains concentrated in urban areas, insufficient in scale and misaligned with rural needs. Rural Ireland is facing a double burden; too little new supply and often poor existing housing stock. At the same time, infrastructure deficits are holding communities back. Water and wastewater capacity is preventing development in towns and villages, transport options are limited, road networks are underfunded and digital connectivity remains inconsistent. Without addressing those fundamentals, no rural strategy will succeed. The question is not about consultation; it is about whether Government is willing to change direction. We in Sinn Féin have made our position clear any time we have spoken about this, which has been often. Housing must be central to the next rural strategy. That means annual rural housing delivery targets, a serviced-sites programme that works and a sustained investment in water and wastewater infrastructure. It means aligning housing delivery with employment patterns and regional economic development and ending the contradictions between planning policy and rural sustainability. We have put forward plans for additional gardaí, enhanced plans for primary care and meaningful steps to reduce deprivation and growing energy poverty. We need clear targets, defined timelines, assigned responsibility and annual reporting to the Dáil in the new iteration of the plan. Without that accountability this will simply be another strategy that describes problems rather than solving them. It will be another thing to gather dust on top of the shelf somewhere. This requires an infrastructure-first approach. Investment in water, transport and connectivity must come ahead of and alongside development, and there must be targeted supports for Gaeltacht, island and coastal communities, recognising the unique pressures they face. Rural island does not need another consultation process that leads nowhere, it needs leadership at Cabinet, alignment across Government, delivery and an about-face from this Government.

Sentiment score: -0.06