For the Technical Group, I call Deputy Tom Fleming.

Save Rural Ireland is a new group of stakeholders representative of 1,200 community groups across the country. The group was recently formed and has over 100,000 members currently. They met a group of Deputies and Senators yesterday to express their views on the continuing demise of rural Ireland and the need for Government policy to halt this downward slide. They are highlighting the issues currently affecting the social and economic development of rural Ireland and they are seeking a change in Government policies in several issues pertaining to rural decline. At the presentation to Oireachtas Members and to the media yesterday, the group reflected on many issues similar to those raised in Richard Curran's outstanding documentary programme on Monday night last on RTE1. The programme, aptly titled "The Battle for Rural Ireland," depicted the plight of rural areas and their fight to survive. The group's representatives sense that the rural community has gone to the edge of the cliff. They have got to the stage at which they are prepared to fight and resist being given the final push out over the cliff and into the abyss of no return. That is the reality facing the countryside at present.

Almost a decade of recession and recession policies and politics has taken a huge toll on these rural areas, and the group has identified a number of key issues which need immediate attention. Will the Government address in what remains of its lifetime a number of these items that were brought before us yesterday?

There is need for a regional spread in job creation. At present, three quarters of all jobs are going into Dublin and other principal cities, and this cannot be allowed to continue. The Government needs to accelerate the roll-out of broadband and ensure the viability of post offices and other services. Some GP services in rural areas are being discontinued due to retirements, etc. We need to get back our doctors from abroad and ensure there are services in remote rural areas. There are several such cases at present. The issue of Bus Éireann routes is topical.

Finally, I compliment the Minister, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, on what she has achieved in government in changing the system for school enrolment. This would mean the retention of a significant number of teachers as well as the recruitment of a number of additional teachers. I will give her credit; she has rural Ireland in her heart. Perhaps she will take these matters to Cabinet.

I thank Deputy Tom Fleming, who has raised an important issue. The Government has appointed a Minister of State with responsibility for rural affairs, Deputy Ann Phelan. She works across the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport and the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government and is doing an effective job in raising these issues and giving them importance in government. In fact, she attended Cabinet last week to discuss one of the issues about which Deputy Tom Fleming is concerned.

I thank the Deputy for his compliments concerning the issue of smaller schools. We have a very good programme in place to alleviate the situation for schools that were at risk of losing teachers, recognising in particular isolated rural schools that are 8 km or more from the nearest school. We have also been engaging with local communities where enrolment numbers are dropping. This is an example of an action that Government has taken to address issues of serious concern in rural areas. Another is the announcement of the Leader programme by the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Kelly, and the Minister of State, Deputy Ann Phelan, in recent days. Leader is an extremely important programme for rural Ireland. The most recent announcements pertaining to the Action Plan for Jobs by the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Bruton, also had a strong regional dimension. The latest plan stresses the importance of ensuring that jobs are created in rural Ireland and in those parts of the country that have not benefitted from the economic recovery that we are now seeing, particularly along the east coast and in Dublin. The Department of Social Protection has ensured that post offices in general and rural post offices in particular are used to provide many of its services and payments to the public. The Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy White, is working on the roll-out of broadband which is extremely important in rural areas, especially for those trying to run small businesses.

The roll-out is like a glacier. It is very slow.

In my own area of responsibility, we have finished the roll-out of high-speed broadband to post-primary schools and are now concentrating on rolling it out fully to primary schools.

We are working on a wide variety of areas relevant to rural Ireland, and Deputy Fleming has raised some other areas for consideration. I read recent media reports on the group to which he referred, and Government is happy to work with its members and with all of the Deputies in this House who represent rural constituencies to ensure that rural Ireland remains a priority.

There is a need for the development of a specialised rural policy which could be integrated into any future programme for Government. This has not been done to date and the approach has been a bit scattered and fragmented.

I wish the Minister of State, Deputy Ann Phelan, the very best and believe that she has one of the most responsible positions in Government. Several glaring deficiencies have been raised with Deputies representing rural Ireland, and there is a need for collective responsibility in Cabinet to address them. Some of the issues I raised pertain to various Departments, and the Cabinet will have to wake up and focus on the areas that need to be addressed urgently. In that context, I believe that the Minister of State, Deputy Ann Phelan, is entitled to sit at the Cabinet table, as was done in the past with other Ministers of State. I cannot recollect the details precisely but during the time of the so-called rainbow Government, a Minister of State was elevated to Cabinet. I ask that this be done immediately in the case of the Minister of State.

I compliment Mr. Pat Spillane on the sterling work he has done and also Mr. Edmond Harty from Dairymaster, a very successful rural company. The recommendations in the report of the Commission for the Economic Development of Rural Areas could be very effective if they were implemented properly. I hope the Government will give local partnerships the responsibility they deserve because they have delivered high-quality service under the Leader programme. I welcome the new Leader programme that has been introduced and I hope that the role of the partnerships will not be diluted. I urge the Government to give some teeth, so to speak, to the position of the Minister of State, Deputy Ann Phelan, to allow her to implement the recommendations of the aforementioned CEDRA report.

I assure Deputy Fleming that the Minister of State, Deputy Ann Phelan, has had one-to-one conversations with me and all of my Cabinet colleagues on issues relating to rural Ireland to ensure we prioritise them within our areas of responsibility. Small rural schools would be an example of one of the issues about which I have had intensive discussions with her.

On the issue of Ministers of State sitting at the Cabinet table, apart from the Chief Whip, the Minister of State at the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Nash, attends Cabinet meetings alongside his senior Minister, Deputy Bruton, because the Government has made jobs one of its top priorities. As Deputy Fleming said in his opening remarks, job creation is crucial in rural Ireland. We need to build on the strengths of different parts of the country to provide jobs for people near their homes. Having two Ministers from the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the Cabinet table is significant. Whoever is in Government after the next general election will decide which areas should be given priority in the context of seats at the Cabinet table.