The Irish Creamery and Milk Suppliers Association is welcoming the launch of today's rural reinvigoration plan.
However the President of the organisation, John Comer, says it must go past appearances and into real economic development.
Mr Comer says it seems to focus on relatively modest aims like easing the regulations to allow conversion of disused commercial premises into accommodation and speeding up the roll-out of high speed broadband.
He says this is long overdue but the real tool to reinvigorate rural Ireland has to focus on getting decently paid work and real economic opportunity into rural areas.
Mr Comer says he welcomes the promise to keep country schools and the need to reform ‘Fair Deal’ in a way that ensured that the contributions levied on farm families availing of the scheme did not effectively ‘wipe out’ the value of the farm and force the next generation of farmers to have to ‘buy back’ the farm they were being left.
