Rose Conway-Walsh: Tackling Mayo's Rural Depopulation

Minister, rural depopulation is one of the greatest challenges facing Mayo with too many young people leaving because they cannot see a future at home and indeed one of the main reasons they're leaving now is because they cannot afford a place to live. So as a Mayo TD and as a Minister with responsibility for rural and community development in the Gaeltacht, can I ask you to provide an update on the plans and efforts you're making to reverse rural depopulation across the county? As you know, our rural future is a policy document that since 2021 is delivering vital investment and support, strengthening local economies and improving the quality of life across rural Ireland. Significant achievements include the delivery of the national broadband plan, the development of a national network of over 400 remote working hubs, enhanced public transport services through the Connecting Ireland Rural Mobility Programme, a programme that is shared by Minister Buttermore in both departments. Through Rural Regeneration Development Fund, through the Town and Village Renewal Scheme and the Outdoor Recreation Infrastructure Scheme, we are investing in rural communities all across the country and indeed across County Mayo. Recent figures from the CSO show a 5.8% increase in the number of people living in rural areas between 2016 and in 2022. In areas that are classified as highly rural and remote, including many in Mayo, that increases 6.4%. However, I'm very conscious that that growth is inconsistent and that many areas are still losing population and that is why the new draft national planning statement will be important, not just for Gaeltacht areas but for rural areas in terms of bringing families back into areas with families, we get support for schools, for post offices and for services. However, under our rural future, we have invested significantly in County Mayo through 8.8 million in the current LEADER Programme, over €39 million in RRDF funding, over €5.8 million in the Community Centre Investment Scheme. I was delighted to be able to be on one of our more remote communities recently on Inis Turk, where we launched the fibre rollout on the National Broadband Scheme and also through Town and Village Renewal Scheme, I allocated €1.5 million to six projects. However, Deputy, I'm very aware, as you are, I'm committed to working on those areas where the disparity is where population are leaving and I want to make sure that we get families back in and through issues like the vacant property grant, we're trying to do that. Thanks Minister and I don't deny those things that you have read out there, but I think the problem with it is that there isn't a consistent approach. So while there are many projects that you and I would have both visited, they're really good projects, but if you look in terms of, this isn't us saying it as a party, but if you look at the GAA for instance, and I think it's a minor miracle that Mayo are in the All-Ireland final with all of the young people being, or so many of the young people being in Australia and I know you'll want to join with me in wishing Mayo the very best of luck on Sunday week and hopefully after 75 years we'll have some good news. Although it'll be fairly difficult for me to get any focus from my Belmont constituency office with Brenda O'Donoghue, Ryan's mum concentrating on the football for the next two weeks, by the way she'll be here tomorrow so you can say congratulate her. That's to one side, there are many issues. Minister will respond now when you come back in, Minister please. So all I can say Deputy is if Brenda's in charge of the Mayo team we'd have won many All-Irelands and I absolutely mean that. I wish the team every success, it'll be a great week and I mean amazing achievement. But you're absolutely right, we, Minister Putnam, I've met the GAA demographics committee and we've discussed this with Deputy Beginners as well and I'm going to be incorporating a lot of their work into the new our rural future because it really, I have to say the GAA have led in terms of supporting organisations in what they've done with the demographics committee and I want to congratulate Benny Hurrell, the chairman of the committee and our former colleague Shane Castles who's joined that committee and doing a lot of work there. I'm going to incorporate some of the ideas, many of the ideas are trapped or captured rather in the national planning statement in terms of getting people back in, in terms of investing in supporting facilities, in terms of remote working, giving people a chance to come back from their areas and people are going to travel but I want them to come back and I want to give them communities to come back to, communities of a standard that they're used to travelling to because if we don't provide that standard of facilities and infrastructure we won't get them back and I absolutely want to get them back. I want us to win multiple awards. In relation to the planning guidelines I just want to say to you you need to do proper consultation, there are consultation with the groups across the country and across the county in rural Ireland. I don't believe there's been enough consultation. You know the things that we need in Mayo in relation to the non-sterilisation of land along the N59, people being able to build on their own sites, consistency in planning, all of those things that need to be addressed and I think maybe just to ask you when people are really going to know, when people are going to see the impact of that in terms of them being able to build a home or to live in their own communities, I think that's an important message. I just want to say in relation to transport as well, Minister, the lack of connectivity between the services is just crazy. You know an awful lot more can be done without even further investment in public transport, even though we always need public investment, but things like you know the train coming in to a station and the bus having left 10 minutes beforehand. I want to say to you about that this might seem a very minor thing around the trolley on the train to Mayo. You saw today there was a woman six months pregnant in a heat of 30 degrees on a three and three quarter hour journey. It's totally wrong, we can't even get a trolley on that train. All right, so in terms of transport I agree and we're lucky with Sarah and the team and Local Link, coordination is better and just something Deputy McGuinness and Minister Bonner were discussing earlier around bus stops, we have the same problem that's just being resolved hopefully with the National Transport Authority. Secondly in relation to the trolley, it is just beyond me in 2026, why we can't have trolleys and trains, I was just need to cop on and I got that email this evening, it was a very distressing situation for that passenger. It's just ridiculous, Irish Rail are just being ridiculous around trolleys at this stage. Thirdly in relation to the N59 and the draft planning guidelines generally, it is the Minister's intention that they would take effect next year, but I've asked my councillors and my party's councillors and I'll ask Councillor Murray as well because they are our councillors are the best planners and the best experts in planning to look at the guidelines and I think that will be useful exercise for us all to do for our councillors to examine these guidelines and we'll certainly feed that through to a review process. It's important we get them in as quick as possible.