Rural Schemes
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-05
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Dara Calleary (FF), Mayo

I will happily compare everything we are doing here to what is happening under other governments and under First Minister O'Neill. The Deputy referred to my predecessor. My predecessor delivered €440 million to over 160 projects through RRDF since 2020, over €235 million through the town and village renewal scheme and over €110 million through the rural social scheme. This money is changing and transforming rural communities across the country.
As Minister, Heather Humphreys, ensured a revolution in terms of the schemes initiated by the Department. I am building on that and on extra investment, working with Minister of State, Deputy Buttimer, to do that. We are also driving it. It is not just our Department, a point I made to Deputy Smith earlier. We are in charge of rural policy but every Department has a role in it. As we discussed with Deputy McGuinness, the Deputy will see that in the new Our Rural Future policy, actions will be assigned to Departments, and we will drive the delivery of those actions.
I am very happy to compare what we are doing here and to compare the ambition with what we are doing here. I would like to do more of it and I assure the Deputy that I will.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-05/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:36+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-05