Protecting Rural Ireland: Motion Seanad Éireann — 2026-07-15 ============================================================ Pauline Tully (SF), Cultural and Educational Panel The motion that we have put forward is very broad and covers many aspects that affect us in rural life. I too am astounded by the amendment tabled by the Government because it does not call for anything, which gives the impression that everything that is needed is there, yet many colleagues across the room here ask for more gardaí in their local area, increased childcare, more supports for roads and transport and so on. I am amazed by it. I live in rural Ireland and grew up in it, on a small farm, where my parents were able to rear a family of ten without having to work off-farm. That is not possible any more. We are facing a real crisis in farming, especially in family farming, if we do not deal with the age profile of our farmers. One third of our farmers are over 65 in this country and only 4.3% of them are under 35. We need a properly funded and robust succession scheme to ensure that the family farm can continue. We have a worldwide reputation for the production of good-quality food that is traceable from farm to fork. We will lose that if it becomes part of an intensive farm without our country. We also need to incentivise younger farmers who want to farm but do not feel it is possible. There are some good schemes. The targeted agricultural modernisation schemes are good. They encourage people to farm in an efficient, environmentally friendly manner, but the money is not behind them at the moment. Out of ten farmers who get approval for the increased slurry scheme or solar scheme, only one is being given the grant, and the money is just not there. Farmers want to use solar. They want to put solar panels on their sheds or on their farm buildings, not over agricultural land but on farm buildings. They have to provide additional slurry. There are new regulations coming in by 2028. If we do not do that, we as a country will face fines of billions for not reaching our targets in reducing emissions by 2030. Why can we not just find the money somewhere? It is better to borrow it and invest in our young farmers or farming sector and ensure that we do not end up having to pay fines, which is dead money to me, when it could be invested in making sure that our farms are viable and we keep people working that family farm. We pay some of the highest energy costs in Europe, possibly worldwide, and that is having a huge impact on households, businesses and our farms. We should be looking at investing in and putting in proper infrastructure for wind energy and our solar panels. I echo the call that we need updated wind energy development guidelines. We also need to work with communities. It should not just be a foreign company coming in here and providing the infrastructure then taking all the profits. We need to see investment by the State in community wind energy, working with communities, and offshore too, to ensure that we can provide our own energy, get away from using fossil fuel and away from our dependence on oil and gas that is coming in from other countries. Many times here, I have raised the condition of the roads in Cavan. Cavan is a very rural county. It is a Border county. There is no rail service to Cavan, Monaghan or Donegal. We are a region without a rail service and we are dependent on our roads. We have public transport in the form of buses. There are sometimes problems with them but generally it is a good service. We are seeing an improving Local Link service all the time, with more and more routes being added, which is great and I welcome that. The national and regional roads are in generally reasonable condition but the rural roads are a disaster. I have called a number of times for the Minister for Transport, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, to come in here and debate the funding that he gives to rural roads in Cavan, in particular, and how it compares with other counties relative to the size of the county, and he has not done that. I see the roads around me and they are disintegrating. The weather is not helping. We have very wet weather for some parts of the year, which we have witnessed already, and now we have extremely hot weather which is melting the tar. We will have to expect this type of weather for the next few years. We need to plan for that and we need to ensure that we invest in our roads and they are built to last through the different types of weather conditions that we have. Regarding rural transport, I was talking to an older woman in Shercock on Saturday. She had an appointment in Monaghan hospital. She had no option but to get a taxi from Shercock to Monaghan hospital and back. It cost her €250. For an old age pensioner who is depending on her pension, she had barely enough to just buy a few groceries after that. We need to look at a better public transport system, especially looking after our older people in isolated communities. Even to support our rural pub, we need to look at some sort of incentive for a taxi service that is affordable for people, so we can maintain our rural pubs and look after our older people. Regarding health, in my local village of Kilnaleck, there was always a GP service. We have lost it. There is another sizeable village in Cavan, Ballyhaise, which has a lovely health centre. A lovely health centre in Kilnaleck is idle, and there is no doctor or service in the one in Ballyhaise. The HSE is using it for administrative purposes. The people want to see a GP service in their local area. We need to see far more GPs in our communities. We need to have them in our rural communities too and not have people travel all the time. Sláintecare is being rolled out too slowly, so we need to see proper resourcing of community healthcare. It avoids people ending up in acute healthcare settings, which are overcrowded. I see a dangerous trend where many people are being referred from areas such as Cavan and Monaghan to Dublin for acute care. There is a lack of specialist services in the rural areas. We need to see our hospitals maintained in rural areas. There is a lack of capacity in childcare services, which is causing a huge problem. There are about 40,000 children on a waiting list for childcare services. There was supposed to be investment in derelict buildings, of which we see many in our towns and villages, to repurpose them as community childcare facilities. I do not see any movement on that. That needs to be looked at and invested in. Community and voluntary services on the ground, which are vital for providing supports and services to many sectors of the community, including older people and younger people, are not seeing sufficient funding to help them to keep running, to recruit and retain staff within the youth sector, for example, to maintain buildings if they have them, and to pay rent if they have not. Transport is an issue that young people bring up with me all the time too. They cannot get to these youth services if they do not have sufficient transport. The motion is wide-ranging. It raises many different issues. We want it to be addressed and kept on the agenda. We want to see a proper, updated policy put in place to ensure that rural communities remain vibrant. Rural Ireland is a good place to live but we need to make sure that it remains as such. I note that the north and western region of Ireland is ranked something like 218th out of 234 EU regions for transport infrastructure, which I already talked about. That is very concerning. There is a lack of investment and public funding, and we need to see far more investment in those areas. The M3, for example, comes from Dublin to the Cavan-Meath border and stops. We have a bottleneck at Virginia and have been waiting for a Virginia bypass for over 26 years. We will have to wait another few years if it happens this time. There are many issues in this motion. I am amazed that the Government is opposing it. It could have accepted it and added to it if necessary. I am amazed. --- 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/seanad/2026-07-15/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:52:16+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-07-15