2026-05-21

96. Deputy Pádraig O'Sullivan asked the Minister for Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht if he will provide an update on the public consultation process for the successor to the Our Rural Future policy; the way the recently announced €3 million investment in Coillte recreational sites and the €60 million allocated for rural regeneration and development fund projects in 2026 will be prioritised to address depopulation in the most remote western regions; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31546/26]

125. Deputy John Paul O'Shea asked the Minister for Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht for an update on the publication of Our Rural Future 2026–2030; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [37547/26]

137. Deputy Aindrias Moynihan asked the Minister for Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht to confirm when Our Rural Future 2026–2031 policy will be published; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [38266/26]

Deputy O'Sullivan is not here but, with the permission of the House, his question may be asked by Deputy O'Shea.

Will the Minister give an update on the publication of Our Rural Future 2026–2030 and make a statement on the matter? As he knows, rural Ireland is at the heart of our country. It is where people live, work, raise families, run businesses and contribute enormously to our economy and society. Rural communities also face unique challenges, from access to housing and healthcare to transport, connectivity and sustaining local services. I am very hopeful that the new strategy will focus on balanced regional development, supporting rural jobs, revitalising our towns and villages, improving infrastructure and ensuring that people can continue to live and thrive in their own communities.

I propose to take Questions Nos. 96, 125 and 137 together. I thank Deputy O'Shea for his question. The Our Rural Future policy is delivering vital investment and supports to rural areas, strengthening local economies and improving quality of life across rural Ireland. Our programme for Government includes a commitment to publish and implement a new Our Rural Future policy. The development of this policy has been informed by very extensive public and stakeholder consultation, which took place throughout 2025. It gathered the views of over 2,000 participants. The engagement included an online survey, a series of eight public and stakeholder events, including one in Charleville, and a public written consultation, which received more than 270 responses. The Rural Youth Assembly was directly consulted to ensure the voices of young people are being fully considered in this process. The Minister of State, Deputy Buttimer, and I, along with our officials, have held bilateral meetings with key stakeholders and representative groups, including the GAA demographics group, Departments and public bodies. The key themes emerging include supporting local economies and strengthening the resilience and sustainability of rural towns, villages and communities, all with a view to promoting balanced regional development. The development of the new policy has also been informed by an independent review of rural policy in Ireland, which was carried out by a panel of international experts from the OECD. The new policy will continue our whole-of-government approach, building on the progress and investment that have been delivered to date and setting out a renewed and refreshed vision for the years ahead. With this in mind, I recently brought an update to a Cabinet meeting in relation to the development of a new policy and our shared approach to delivering ambitious and measurable actions across government. Informed by the results of the consultations and the OECD review, the new Our Rural Future policy will be based around five interconnected policy pillars, focusing on rural places, rural services, rural communities, the rural economy and the rural environment. In addition to the policy setting out the key priorities in each pillar, a series of ambitious, clear, practical and measurable actions will be developed and outlined in the accompanying action plan, which will cover the initial period, until the end of 2028. The policy and the associated action plan are nearing completion. We are continuing to work with ministerial colleagues to finalise this process. We are beginning a series of bilateral meetings with a view to bringing a draft of the policy to the Government over the summer. On the issue of depopulation, recent figures from the Central Statistics Office show the population of highly rural and remote areas increased by 6.4% between 2016 and 2022. These findings align with the analysis of the OECD, which, in its review, found that rural and remote regions in Ireland recorded the highest population growth of all OECD countries between 2001 and 2021. Of course, there are significant variations within these figures, and I very much recognise that there are rural areas that face particular challenges. Ensuring the sustainability and attractiveness of all rural areas remains a key focus of the Government. The development of our new Our Rural Future policy and the full range of schemes being delivered by the Department focus on this.

I welcome the Minister's commitment to the publication of the Our Rural Future strategy for the period 2026 to 2030. It is vital that we continue to deliver for rural Ireland through sustained investment and practical schemes that make a real difference in people's lives. We have seen the positive impact of investment in rural regeneration, town and village renewal, rural transport, broadband and community development projects right across the country. However, there is still more work to do. Rural communities want to see continued support for housing delivery, improved local services, stronger infrastructure and greater opportunities for young people to live and work in their own areas. Schemes that support rural businesses, farmers, tourism and community organisations must remain a priority if we are to keep our towns and villages vibrant and sustainable. The strategy now provides an opportunity to build on the progress that has already been achieved and to ensure no rural community is left behind over the coming years.

I am very much focused on and in alignment with the Deputy's vision. We have made significant progress. Through budget 2026, we are investing €600 million in communities across the country, particularly through the rural development investment programme, which will see a total of €192 million invested this year. The various initiatives have been developed in capital programmes in a targeted way, but also, as I have said consistently this morning, they are directed and owned by communities, either through local authorities or local development companies. It is important that this is not coming from the Department but from communities across the country. I was particularly delighted to announce the community centre investment programme, which is not just for rural areas but is very much focused on them. It will open next week. We recently announced a partnership with Coillte to invest further in a programme that, since 2020, has delivered €16 million to develop rural trails and services to open up enterprise initiatives. I thank Coillte for its work on this. My officials are engaging with Coillte to develop a further programme. We have already mentioned the RRDF programme, the town and village renewal programme and the outdoor recreation investment scheme. Those schemes are bringing economic opportunities that are sustainable and job-creating. They are brining infrastructure investment into rural areas, which will allow for long-term development. We have looked at the reawakening of rural communities, such as the Shackleton Experience in Athy and the projects in Laois and Kerry that I had the pleasure of visiting some weeks back. All of the projects we visit give us a drive to keep doing this work and to ensure the new Our Rural Future document will be different. It will build on previous work but it must be different and relevant to Ireland between 2026 and 2030. Many of the submissions we have got reflect that ambition. They reflect the challenges but also reflect a new ambition and outside-the-box thinking. As I said in my initial response, the Minister of State, Deputy Buttimer, and I met the GAA demographics committee to get under the bonnet of those population figures. While the OECD report was very positive, the GAA demographics committee gives us much more of the reality on the ground and, most importantly, of the disparity on the ground in rural population figures. That is something we will be targeting under the RRDF.

I thank the Minister, the Minister of State and the Department for the significant level of grant funding that has been delivered to Cork North-West in recent years for projects and community initiatives. I know that both the Minister and the Minister of State have been to Cork North-West in recent months, celebrating those projects, so I thank them. Across our towns and villages, we have seen the real benefits of investment through schemes such as the town and village renewal scheme, the CLÁR scheme, the outdoor recreation supports and the RRDF. These investments are helping communities to improve facilities, support local enterprise, enhance public spaces and make rural areas more attractive places to live and work. I acknowledge in particular the work of the local community groups in the area, Cork County Council, the local development companies and the volunteers who continue to drive forward these projects on the ground. Importantly, we have many more worthwhile projects in the pipeline across Cork North-West. The community has ambition and eagerness to continue improving those local areas. I look forward to working with the Minister, the Minister of State and the Department to secure continued support for these projects into the future. Continued investment in rural Ireland is essential to ensuring balanced regional development and strong, thriving communities.

I thank the Deputy. We were delighted to be with him in Baile Bhuirne in April, which is a good example of Departments working together under the RRDF, Roinn na Gaeltachta agus Údaras na Gaeltachta to reimagine Coláiste Íosagáin into the hub that it is now. That was a good example of Departments coming together. We have invested €440 million in 160 RRDF projects since 2020. We have invested €140 million in over 1,000 town and village renewal projects since 2020 and €110 million in over 1,200 projects under the outdoor recreation investment scheme since 2020. We have invested €65 million in 1,500 projects through CLÁR since 2020. Through the community centres investment fund, CCIF, we have invested €112 million across new builds, including one in Rylane in the Deputy's constituency, since its launch in 2020. The Minister of State, Deputy Buttimer, and I are opening CCIF again. Separate from our Department, there is also the ongoing progress of the national broadband plan, a €3 billion investment in the communications infrastructure of rural Ireland. That will be finished next year. There is also the rural mobility plan, which the Minister of State, Deputy Buttimer, leads out at the Department of Transport, and will include the delivery of more than 180 new or enhanced public transport services. There is also work ongoing in my old Department with the regional enterprise plans and various initiatives that are regionally targeted, focusing on the different strengths of our regions. As we have already discussed this morning, there is also the town centre first initiative across the country. We continue to invest our island communities. I will be visiting island in the coming weeks around enhanced communications infrastructure. All of that must happen under scaffolding and requires a policy document. That is why we are engaging in bilateral meetings at ministerial level around Our Rural Future. We must ensure that every Department understands it has responsibilities for the future of rural Ireland and cannot delegate all of those responsibilities to my Department. Our Rural Future in an all-of-government document. The action plan that comes with it will be an all-of-government document. It will assign responsibility, actions and targets to the various Departments and I will monitor their delivery. We will ensure they are delivered between now and 2028 in the first iteration of the programme.