Our Rural Future: Statements Dail Éireann — 2026-04-28 ============================================================ Dara Calleary (FF), Mayo Gabhaim buíochas leis na Teachtaí go léir tráthnóna inniu. Cé nach bhfuilimid ar aon intinn ar gach rud, is léir nach bhfuil ach dea-rún ag gach duine anseo i leith thodhchaí níos dóchasaí a chruthú do cheantair agus do mhuintir thuaithe na hÉireann. Is ceart - agus tá sé soiléir - go bhfuil bród ag gach duine as a gceantair thuaithe, as ár n-oidhreacht thuaithe agus go háirithe as ár bpobal tuaithe. Is cuid lárnach iad dár ndúchas mar thír, agus tá ár bhforbairt náisiúnta amuigh anseo fite fuaite lenár bhforbairt thuaithe ansin. I thank every Deputy. While we may disagree on many of the items, there was passion and pride in the debate today. I join Deputy Michael Collins and Senator Margaret Murphy O'Mahony in paying tribute to the late Councillor Joe Carroll. There have been many tributes to him for his passion. Deputy Collins summed him up wonderfully. He was a joyful character. He brought passion to politics and to people. I extend my deepest sympathies to his wife, Sheila, and his family, on his very untimely passing. A number of key issues were raised around infrastructure and services. I will touch on some of them. Many people raised post offices. Through Our Rural Future, we have provided the funds to the Department of communications for rural post offices in particular to assist them. It is one of the challenges, as we invest in the national broadband scheme - which is rolling out ahead of schedule - that we are giving people more access to online services. That means we have to ensure that subsidies are available for services such as post offices. Many Deputies spoke about the withdrawal of post offices, Garda stations and banks, for instance. That is something that we need to look at to ensure that there are facilities within rural villages and towns to get that footfall. There has been a lot of talk about housing, particularly the proposal by Deputies Wall and Timmins around serviced sites in rural areas and rural communities. Deputy Martin Kenny raised a point about DEDs and the population of DEDs. It is something I will reflect on, combined with the proposals in relation to serviced sites in areas. The Minister, Deputy Browne, is committed to rural housing guidelines. Many of the issues that have been discussed across the House are shared in terms of people who need access to rural areas, families who want to return. Deputy Timmins made the comment about families wanting to come back into rural areas and it being held against them that they may have property in urban areas. I am committed to working with the Minister, Deputy Browne, on that. Deputy McGuinness called for targeted supports for the Gaeltacht and our islands. I have introduced that. I have introduced extra supports in terms of RRDF, town and village renewal and CLÁR, specifically for Gaeltacht areas, but also for islands. We would have been at the Comhdháil Oileáin na hÉireann AGM last week - it was postponed, unfortunately - to try to address the challenges that we face there. I also want to see skills, particularly on our islands, to ensure that we have the services on the islands. That is why we have worked with technology in relation to healthcare. I commend the work under way in the University of Galway around that space. It is about how we can bring remote healthcare to islands by using technology. There is some very good work there. Both Deputies McGuinness and Mac Lochlainn have spoken about rural fishing communities. I have asked Deputy Mac Lochlainn to provide me with the information in relation to the Faroe Islands. I certainly want to see how we can do in that. I will come back to the Deputies. A number of Deputies, including Deputy Conway-Walsh, raised seaweed harvesting. It is a traditional industry that we need to respect and regard. Many Deputies have raised challenges in relation to Rural Link and Local Link. Equally, we have to acknowledge the massive transformation that has been made on Local Link in the last number of years. We have seen that in Mayo, led by Sarah Togher and her fantastic board. There has been a transformation of the service. Yes, we need to continue to investment and a number of areas have been challenged around that. My colleague, Deputy Ryan O'Meara, raised community cafés and community services. That is something I will seek to support in the new Our Rural Future. The community café model is fantastic and it shows. Many Deputies have spoken today about volunteers. The point I always make is that parents, young parents in particular, get very busy doing the runs and being in ten places at the one time for the same training, but could you imagine if there were no trainers? Imagine there was no local committee to do the training. Imagine there was nobody to give the drama classes. Life would be a lot more complicated then if people had to entertain the kids themselves. That volunteer spirit is what keeps rural Ireland going. Deputy Roche and a number of other Deputies referred to what we call the bureaucracy burden that we unintentionally place on volunteers. That is something I am committed to addressing. We have made changes to CCIF. LEADER is one of the programmes that comes back a lot as having a major bureaucracy element to it, and it does because it is cofunded. We have to make sure that the form filling and the necessary information is not frightening people off. That is something we are committed to. A lot of issues were raised regarding businesses in rural areas. We face a major challenge. As we go online and become more online, we have to try to protect businesses and base businesses in rural areas. I am certainly open to ideas and proposals on how we can do that. If we can do that, while there is a generation who may never walk into a shop, we have to give them a reason to use and go to a town and a village, be it for schools, community events, sport or the activities I referred to earlier. That is why we invest in infrastructure. That is why we invest in community infrastructure in order to do that. I thank all the Deputies for their contributions, including the Leas-Cheann Comhairle. We have taken that on board and we will incorporate it into Our Rural Future. Equally, we all have a job to drive this debate on within our groups and parties, but also to actually deliver changes that support rural communities. That is something that we want to lead on. Many Deputies have referred to this. There is no need to divide our country. At a time of such division internationally, there is no need to divide this country between urban and rural. Urban areas need rural communities and vice versa . The west coast of Ireland is providing some leading healthcare, pharmaceutical and health technology. It is providing services and treatments around the world from rural brains and a rural sense of enterprise. It is a kind of enterprise or meitheal. I speak of this all over the country. Meitheal must be a Mayo thing. I am struck by the fact that people do not seem to realise the work that volunteers to do in coming together in common purpose is meitheal. It happens everywhere in the country, but that is driven from within rural communities. It is driven from the passion of rural communities - a passion that was in evidence in the Chamber today. Gabhaim míle buíochas le gach duine as páirt a ghlacadh sa díospóireacht seo inniu. Bhí sé úsáideach. Táimid chun an polasaí nua a fhoilsiú i gceann cúpla seachtain. Táim ag tnúth go mór leis an bpolasaí sin a chur i bhfeidhm. I am looking to the new draft, but, most importantly, the policy will not be the important thing. It is the action plan that will go with it. It will include measurable, ambitious actions that I will have no difficulty, as long as I am Minister in this Department, reporting back on. I will conclude by thanking all of the officials in my Department who work incredibly hard in this space. I especially thank each and every person across rural Ireland who volunteers in any format, in any organisation and in any club to make our rural communities stronger, more vibrant, more welcoming and more active. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-04-28/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:52+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-04-28