We go now to Deputy O'Donoghue of the Rural Independent Group.

I am raising issues on which I need answers. Why is there a disconnect between what was printed in the 150 commitments in the Government's Rural Development Policy 2021-2025, Our Rural Future, published on 29 March, and what is happening on the ground? The rural development policy states that it is 100% focused on supporting people and enterprise to remain in rural Ireland. The main ambition of the policy is to have more people working in rural Ireland. My understanding of this is that people would be enabled to work from their own local communities in order to revitalise town centres, reduce commuting times, lower transport emissions and, most importantly, improve their quality of life.

How is this going to happen? There is no development in towns and villages to support it.

Sorry, there are other people talking.

A developer cannot commence building when there is no basic infrastructure in place. I can now reveal that each town and village in Ireland is to be capped such that they cannot develop under the Government's 2040 plan. What is the purpose of bringing development to a standstill? Is it just a token gesture of updating existing services in some towns and villages? It does not increase the capacity of our water and sewerage infrastructure. The Minister for Rural and Community Development, Deputy Humphreys, has said about rural Ireland:

For decades we have seen...young people leave their local communities to live and work in larger cities. As we emerge from Covid-19 we will never have a better opportunity to reverse that long-standing trend.

An ambition of the rural development policy is to ensure that people living in rural areas have access to good quality public services that enable them to continue to live sustainably in rural communities. This will help them to maintain a good quality of life. Investing in improvements in public transport services, healthcare within communities, housing provision, early learning and childcare facilities and community safety is all a means to an end. It is written in the Government's manifesto but only achievable if basic infrastructure is provided.

I listened to the Taoiseach rattle off numbers, pointing to X number of houses being built here and X number being built there. Will he stand up now and tell me how many houses are being built in the small towns, villages and rural areas in County Limerick and around Ireland? I want to see if he has those statistics. He has capped that development under the 2040 plan. If he comes out with the truth, he will tell the people of Ireland that the 2040 plan is limiting the number of houses being built in towns and villages in rural areas because his Government has failed on infrastructure.

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. To cut straight to the point, there has been strong delivery of new homes in rural areas over recent years. Approximately 26,000 rural house planning permissions were granted in the past five years. In the same period, nearly 93% of that number of rural homes were actually built. There is ongoing work. The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, is currently updating rural housing planning guidelines that will continue to allow for the development of homes in rural areas while also highlighting the need to manage certain areas around cities and towns in order to avoid overdevelopment of those areas.

As the Deputy knows, in the programme for Government and the rural development policy that was launched, the whole idea of developing town centres is a critical part. Funding will be provided to facilitate the reconstruction of run-down units or buildings and to refurbish and renovate them for residential purposes. The new rural regeneration policy will be part of that as well. The URDF, with well over €1 billion more in funding announced in recent times by the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, will dramatically increase infrastructure in towns across the country. Massive amounts of money are now allocated to get vital water infrastructure and enabling works done and facilitate development of enterprise, industry and housing right across the length and breadth of the country. This is critical to ensuring big investment in the regional cities to create a counterpole to the development of Dublin in the east, so that we have a more balanced development of the country into the future.

I do not think we have seen as large an investment programme across the regions as has been announced by the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, in recent times through the URDF. It will be transformative in terms of its impact on the cities and towns across the various regions, from the north-west to the west, south and midlands. That is the continued objective of Government in respect of both the URDF and other funding. Last weekend, the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy McConalogue, announced €38 million for 79 projects from Castletownbere right across the length and breadth of coastal communities, right up to Donegal and out to Balbriggan. There will be very significant investment in harbours and estuaries, which will underpin economic activity in those areas. It is unprecedented what the Government is doing in terms of transforming active transport across the length and breadth of rural Ireland through the provision of greenways, walking routes and public transport.

I draw the Taoiseach's attention to County Limerick, which I represent. Askeaton is 33 years waiting for a sewerage system and Dromcolliher is waiting ten years. Glin is waiting more than 20 years, Hospital more than ten years and Oola more than ten years for infrastructure. There is 27% of the infrastructure left in County Limerick and that is the only place where the investment is going. It is not going into the areas we are talking about. The Government's 2040 plan is going to close down areas completely. Where the Government could not provide houses for people, they are building their own and putting in up-to-date sewerage systems. Now the Government is trying to stop that as well.

I will finish on this point. In my parish of Granagh in County Limerick next week, we will commemorate Lieutenant Mick O'Shea and the Granagh volunteers of 1921 who died for the freedom of Ireland. I challenge the Taoiseach today that they did not die in vain. We were given our freedom to live where we want and neither this Government nor any other Government is going to take that away from the people of County Limerick.

First, I commend the Deputy on organising that commemoration. The people of west Limerick more than did their bit in terms of helping the struggle for Irish independence. Indeed, my late grandfather was close in the Mitchelstown area with those in west Limerick in a number of endeavours. I wish the Deputy well in that regard. They did not die in vain because we have a country, overall and globally, that is a good country to live and work in and a good country in which to have a reasonable quality of life. Part of the programme for Government is to provide good well-being metrics to ensure that we judge ourselves not just by GDP growth but, rather, that we judge ourselves by those qualities that make the difference in terms of human development and facilitating the growth and development of children in a reasonable and high quality way. That is the objective of Government during this term.