I thank the Ceann Comhairle for the extraordinary way in which you have handled the role that you hold. You have upheld the highest of standards. You have been remarkably courteous and very fair in your rulings. The next Dáil will miss you. I have been around for a good while and have seen many cinn chomhairle. You have been exceptional in the way you have handled the office.

I have represented an urban community for 44 years now. In my last contribution, I will go back to and talk about my rural roots. I believe rural Ireland is at a moment of fantastic opportunity with the opening up of broadband, renewables, the opportunity for carbon management, the huge asset that is our towns and villages and the new direction coming from the national planning framework to kickstart that. It has been hugely fulfilling for me, in this, my final week, to be able to produce a document on the future of rural Ireland, something that we did with the Fine Gael policy lab. There is a real opportunity that needs to be seized. We need to nurture and enrich some of the phenomenal exemplars of good practice in the community, one of them remarkably led by a former person of this parish, Dr. Jerry Cowley in Mayo. We also need to reimagine the extraordinary assets in our towns and villages and engineer their delivery, as the Housing Commission has said. We need to create scope for more innovative leadership at local level. We need to have more conscious rural targets for electric vehicles and retrofitting.

This is a moment of real opportunity. I hope whoever enters government will take this opportunity to heart and make a shift in the way the State thinks about leadership at a local level, because we are too centralised in the way we think. Every Government Department has to reorient how it regards local government and create new structures that will be more fulfilling for the future.

I first thank the Deputy for his service to the country. I remember well when I became Minister for education, he was my Opposition spokesperson in education and he had an extraordinary grasp of the detail of the brief at the time, as reflected in the many parliamentary questions, both written and oral. At that time, parliamentary questions-----

I would not have matched Bernard Durkan.

Priority questions at that time was nearly a better model because the Opposition person had about three or four minutes or more per question. Ministers might prefer the present system where it is one minute and one minute, but that is what the Opposition today wants. It does not often see things through, but anyway.

The one thing I agree with Deputy Bruton on is the opportunities opening up for rural Ireland and I have seen it myself as I have travelled the length and breadth of the country. Sometimes there is a very negative narrative around rural Ireland but it is actually growing and I think technology is a great enabler. One thing I will say is I reacted at the time with dismay to the decision of our previous Government, of which I was not a member and was in opposition, to abolish town councils and town commissioners. Many towns that grew around the country had leadership at local level who had a vision for their town. In my own area, I think of towns like Kinsale or the Clonakiltys of this world where they had a vision locally and it worked. The town commissioners across the country worked, including many in Waterford, Lismore being one. It was in our document last time and I think all parties should have it if we are serious about it. Deputy Howlin was Minister at the time, or was in that Government, and he says he now regrets that decision.

Anyway, the Deputy is making a broader point on what can be done for rural Ireland and I am 100% in agreement with that. It is growing. We need investment in water, the grid and housing because grid and water connections are the big holdback currently.