9. Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh asked the Minister for Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht for an update on his Department's efforts to reverse rural depopulation in County Mayo; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [53292/26]

Sentiment score: 0.01

Rural depopulation is one of the greatest challenges facing Mayo, with too many young people leaving because they cannot see a future at home. One of the main reasons they are leaving is they cannot afford a place to live. As a Mayo TD and Minister for Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht, I ask the Minister to provide an update on the plans and efforts the Minister is making to reverse rural depopulation across the county.

Sentiment score: 0.22

I do not deny those things that the Minister has read out. The problem with it is that there is not a consistent approach. While there are many really good projects that the Minister and I have both visited, and this is not us saying it as a party, let us consider the GAA, for instance. It is a minor miracle that Mayo is in the all-Ireland football final with so many of our young people being in Australia. I know the Minister wants to join me in wishing Mayo the very best of luck on Sunday week. Hopefully, after 75 years, we will have some good news, although it will be fairly difficult to get any focus from my Belmullet constituency office with Brenda O'Donoghue, Ryan's mum, concentrating on the football for the next two weeks. By the way, she will be here tomorrow, so the Minister can congratulate her. That is to one side. There are many issues.

Sentiment score: 0.34

On the planning guidelines, the Minister needs to engage in proper consultation with groups across the country and counties in rural Ireland. I do not believe there has been enough consultation. The Minister knows what we need in Mayo, such as the non-sterilisation of land along the N59, people being able to build on their own sites, consistency in planning. All of those issues need to be addressed. When will people see the impact of that and be able to build homes or live in their own communities? That is an important message. On transport, the lack of connectivity between the services is just crazy. An awful lot more can be done without even further investment in public transport, even though we always need public investment. The train coming into the station and the bus having left ten minutes beforehand is an issue. This might seem very minor, but I raise the lack of a trolley service on the train to Mayo. The Minister will have seen today that there was a woman, six months pregnant, in 30° heat on a three and three quarter hour journey. It is totally wrong that we cannot even get a trolley on that train.

Sentiment score: -0.12

Absolutely.

Sentiment score: 0.00