Protecting Rural Ireland: Motion Seanad Éireann — 2026-07-15 ============================================================ Joanne Collins (SF), Agricultural Panel I thank the Minister for his comprehensive response and all the Senators who contributed. However, I am more confused after this debate. I think every Senator in this House touched off an issue in rural Ireland, including Garda numbers making our communities feel safer. We never once said we wanted a garda in every house but, yes, we do want greater Garda numbers. We referred to GAA clubs not having enough players, which is another part of it. Senator O'Loughlin welcomed the wind energy guidelines being released, which was in our motion. Supporting pubs was definitely mentioned, and small businesses in rural communities were included in our motion. Reference was made to the National Ambulance Service, but healthcare was in our motion. I am more confused as to why the amendment takes everything out of our motion and makes no calls on the Government when all the Government Senators called on their Government to do something tonight. I just do not understand that. I would have loved if the Government Senators had removed the parts of the motion they did not like, left the parts that they did like in and added their own bits or reworded it. Senator Boyhan said he did not understand why everything was wiped and the Government Senators put their own wording in. I have a feeling it is because "Sinn Féin" was printed at the end. That is how it feels since the day we started writing motions and Private Members' business in this House. If Sinn Féin is on it, the entire thing is wiped. It comes back to us with an amendment to delete everything after "Seanad Éireann" and put in something else. It just does not make sense to me that we did not work together on it. We have all called for stuff for rural Ireland, yet the Government side wiped the entire motion and called on the Government to do nothing. That was left blank. I cannot figure it out. GAA clubs are being pushed together. There was a time when you had to get a letter from your GAA club to play for another club because it was in a different parish. Now we could have four or five parishes all playing in one club because they do not have the numbers. I know the statistics show that between 2016 and 2022, we had higher numbers. That could be in certain pockets around rural Ireland; it is not a percentage across rural Ireland. I would like to see what it has been for the last four years and whether it has increased again. There was reference to our roads in rural Ireland, including the Macroom bypass and the N20-M20 being a little bit slow. A little bit slow would be five or ten years; we are over 20 years calling for it. That is not a little bit slow. That road has one of the most dangerous junctions, at O'Rourke's Cross where there have been the most accidents. It is probably classed as the most dangerous junction in the Twenty-six Counties. We are not calling for the moon and the stars. We are just calling for acknowledgement. For once, I did not criticise the Government or say it did not do something. I have acknowledged stuff. We have noted stuff and called on the Government to do stuff. I could have just wrote "The Government is crap" and put it down as a motion, but I did not. I was being constructive. I was trying to include some nice things for a change because I do not always want to stand up here and give out. I want to say nice things. I had planned on coming in today and wishing the Limerick hurlers the best of luck but then I thought I would wait until tomorrow so as to end on a good note because I am usually the one standing here giving out about something. I had to do it tonight because the Government Senators just ripped this whole motion apart and called on the Government to do nothing. They then contradicted their amendment when they all stood up to give out about different things in rural Ireland, saying that this thing or that thing could be done. It just does not make sense to me. Perhaps, the next time we submit a motion, we might not say it is from us. We might then get some of it through. --- 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