I welcome the debate we are having today and look forward to two or three years' time when we can say what benefits accrued from it. The real measure will be in the action. Like previous speakers, before I came into the Chamber, I was listening to a lot of the contributions. They were almost identical right across the line. Rural planning was one area raised, housing was another and funding for councils was also referenced. In my case, in County Galway, underfunding is a critical issue. I feel blessed in many ways. I come from a small village in east Galway, Abbeyknockmoy, where we have a good, thriving community. That is because we have business people who try hard and work hard. However, like other contributors have said, one of the things those business people are dogged with is the ever-increasing cost of insurance. Rates are a real issue. The My Future Fund was the most recent additional burden and all of those things add pressure to businesses. I take my hat off to all the volunteers around the country who continue to make applications for funding to the different rural schemes. Often, it is not businesses that do it, but rural volunteers, people who make up the community councils and development companies. They continuously strive to have a better place to live for people locally. One of the things I am always challenged by is when I hear of young couples who have issues obtaining planning permission from the local authority. In some instances, cop-on is absent. In all of this debate, urban areas need the rural economy to be good, because the rural supports the urban. That is just the way it works. Connectivity is an issue we have all spoken about today. I will speak about it in terms of public transport and access to services like GP and dental care. There is a whole host of things that really need to be improved. Fundamentally communities need their young people to stay local and to build locally because they need them to support the local football and hurling team. It is about stimulating that growth and that movement within communities. That is fundamentally important to a lot of those people who are really trying hard. I commend the Minister on the number of times he has appeared before the social protection committee. I can see the passion that he has for promoting and supporting rural communities. Reference was made earlier to the RRDF, CCIF, and sports capital funding and all of the funding that goes across the different streams through which communities can obtain finance to enhance, support and promote services. It is that very stimulation and growth that encourages young people. It means that they like what they see in a village and they decide to build their first home there. Where there are small towns and villages on the periphery, and I am speaking for East Galway in this instance, I wonder and worry about the future for some of those communities 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. We need to be mindful of the towns and villages on the periphery of cities and major towns. We need to help and support them and to be mindful of their needs. One issue that we need to consider carefully is that of additional burdens on businesses in local villages, including filling stations, take aways, pubs, restaurants and others that are struggling in many regards. Any decision of future governments must ask if it is sustainable and if businesses can afford it and if not, let us not do it.

Sentiment score: 0.23