Sarah Carey

We pay a higher rural standing charge for electricity.

So we pay for all our services.

And I remember when Eamon O'Keefe was saying when Fianna Fáil were in power from 1997 to 2011, 4 billion euros, I think, had been spent on wastewater treatment.

And all of that was spent in urban areas.

So there's a mention of me in the Sunday Business Post today where I make a comment about this.

That it's about that when there was a huge row about water rates coming in and people in urban areas were protesting against water rates, people in rural areas, group water schemes, all of the stuff we've been paying ourselves.

So we're not enforcing standards.

Well, that's fair enough.

Now, but the point that Brenda was making about communities.

So the road that I live on is a land commission road built in the 1930s.

And I know the people on that road...

For generations, like I remember their grannies and their great grannies.

And there is a real extraordinary bond in those communities.

And it is worth holding on to.

So, you know, we kind of hear these arguments going on and we see empty French countrysides and things like that.

And there is something uniquely French.

warm and rich about the community.

And by the way, they are.

Rural Ireland is thriving.

You often hear a narrative about the decline of rural Ireland.