It was a family affair when Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands Ms Sile de Valera yesterday paid her first visit to an offshore island since taking over the portfolio almost three years ago.
The island chosen for her visit was Inishbofin, off the Galway coast. She was accompanied by her cousin, Minister of State with responsibility for Islands and TD for the area Mr Eamon O Cuiv.
The two, accompanied by advisers, met representatives from the island community and announced a special grant of £3,000 for the Inishbofin Arts Festival, due to take place from September 6th to 10th this year and featuring musicians such as De Dannan and Sharon Shannon, author Carlo Gebler and Bord Iascaigh Mhara's cookery demonstrator, Phena O'Boyle.
While on the island, Ms de Valera launched the recently purchased island minibus, which had been jointly financed by the Inishbofin Development Committee and her Department. It will be used for the island school run, for bringing people to Mass and for meeting boats at the pier.
The need for a secondary school on Inishbofin, which currently has 28 pupils in the local primary school, was stressed by Mr Simon Murray of the island development committee. In previous years, local children have attended boarding schools on the mainland, but with few schools now taking boarders, this option was no longer viable, Mr Murray said.
A survey has been carried out among local families on how they would like to see such a school develop. The results will shortly be forwarded to the Department.
The process of developing an airstrip for the island is well under way, Mr O Cuiv told the committee. A site has been chosen and the Department has begun the process of purchasing the land.
Ms de Valera commented that while Gaeltacht islands had formerly been better funded than their English-speaking counterparts, the problems faced by the inhabitants of all islands were similar.
"We want to approach the practical problems of living on an island. The cost of building houses, providing education and health are important issues and central to the debate of being able to support people who are born on islands, live on them and want to remain on them." The Ministers were taken on a tour of Inishbofin by minibus and shown the work which has been done to preserve the island's sand dunes, in addition to visiting the site for a local football pitch, which will cost £110,000 to develop. Of this, £34,000 has been allocated by the Department of Sport and Tourism.
All development projects on the island to date have been jointly funded by the Department and local contributions and Inishbofin was a perfect example of how such co-operation worked, said Ms de Valera.