Countryside ‘must be an attractive place to live’

THE Government must address deficiencies in the quality of life for people in rural areas to make the countryside an attractive place to live, Minister of State Noel Ahern said yesterday.

The Minister of State for the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs told a conference on quality of life the challenge was to provide for an “increasingly vibrant and evolving rural society”.

The minister said there was a big challenge facing Ireland to ensure rural areas did not become depopulated or devoid of sustainable economic opportunity.

“We must ensure there are sufficient economic and employment opportunities to sustain rural communities,” he said.

“Rural Ireland must be seen as a place where people can live well and raise their families, where they are guaranteed a good quality of life.”

The minister was speaking at a conference to launch a report on quality of life in West Cork, Waterford and Cavan and Monaghan. In the study a number of categories including health, technology, population, crime, income and housing were examined to measure how well people were living in those areas.

All four areas were found to be below the national average of disposable income per capita, have a higher percentage of over 65s living alone, but have a lower percentage of lone parents with children under 15 than the national average. Waterford was found to have relatively low educational attainment, with a higher percentage of those who ceased education under the age of 15, and was lagging behind the national average in the number of people owning computers or being able to access the internet.

However, all the areas scored well in the area of health, with much lower waiting lists than the national average, and house prices were found to be well below the national average.

West Cork was found to be ahead of the national quality of life benchmark, while Cavan and Waterford were marginally ahead and Monaghan was marginally below it.

Jim Power and Chris Johns, the authors of the report, said a “scientific and proactive” approach towards quality of life must be adopted by policy makers in order to make Ireland a better place to live.

Mr Power, chief economist at Friends First, said policymakers had to target the deficiencies identified in the report such as education and technological capability.