Rural Ireland needs to fight

Madam Editor, The piece by Ronan Long chairman of ‘ Property Partners Nationwide’ in last Sundays ‘ Independent’[ November13th] states, that there is an East/ West divide causing a drift towards Dublin by the young people from the West of Ireland. The lack of investment in housing shortages, inferior road networks, unsafe water infrastructure, and poor broadband connectivity, are the root causes of this population drift towards our capital city. Once you cross the Shannon coming West, the roads and railroad services are of poor quality. Commuters from Tuam to Dublin must get the nearest bus service from Galway city to Dublin, what a joke. The extensive efforts by the many lobby groups to reinstate the ‘ Western Rail Corridor’ has so far been ignored by successive governments over many years. As things stand the lack of a structured housing programme is causing untold damage along the Wild Atlantic Way. The latest State Help- to Buy scheme applies to new houses only and should be extended to firsttime buyers of second- hand homes. The challenge of housing our returning emigrants, homeless, and social housing demands, requires radical new thinking by the present government and future governments, to resolve all these issues that are causing the West and North- West of our country such hardship, and lose our most precious commodity, our young energetic and well educated, young people. Tom Towey, Cloonacool, Co. Sligo,