While rural Ireland is a varied and nuanced place, there are several big issues that have been at the fore of political debate in rural Ireland for some time, and will be crucial come election time.

Of the many issues rural voters will be concerned about in the lead-up to the General Election, we’ve picked out three that are likely to become central pillars of any successful rural campaign in 2016.

Healthcare

Healthcare will always be a major issue in Irish elections. With Leo Varadkar’s honeymoon period (if ever one existed) long over the many serious failings of healthcare in Ireland will become a fierce battleground in the electoral campaign of early 2016. With an election set to happen in the early months, the danger of a repeat of last year’s trolley crisis – when overcrowding reached record levels – will be acutely apparent to Fine Gael and Leo Varadkar. Another crisis will likely mean winter headlines of a creaking healthcare system still echo into the campaigning weeks.

While polling seems to suggest that Fine Gael’s repeated mantra of an improving economy is beginning to stick with the electorate, there is little saving grace in the performance of the health system – and while it’s a national issue, it’s in rural areas that the problems are most apparent.

In August 2015 we covered regional healthcare in the “Your Hospital, Your Health” series on The Pat Kenny Show.
Over the course of the series we looked at overcrowding in Ireland’s regional hospitals, waiting times and the ambulance service outside the main urban areas.

Speaking with patients and staff we heard stories of nurses reaching breaking point as emergency departments overcrowding levels spun out of control and of families who waited hours for ambulance – sometimes while living next to the ambulance depot. We also spoke with ambulance staff who told us they were effectively being diverted away from some isolated areas to ensure better service in urban areas, and so produce better stats for HIQA measurements of efficiency.

Offering some sort of respite from the daily struggle with healthcare in rural Ireland is one of the biggest roles many serving TDs undertake, and will be one any candidate must attempt to offer some sort of solution to.

Crime

Recent months have seen an increasingly vociferous call from rural residents of the dangers of roving criminal gangs.

With large-scale public meetings seeing thousands attend and farmers openly talking about the need to take the law into their own hands, the issue of crime in rural areas has become perhaps the loudest ad most pressing of all.

Newstalk reported in November on this growing fear among isolated communities, visiting a meeting in Co Meath where farmers spoke their fear of raids (particularly in the border regions), cattle rustling and burglaries.

An Garda Síochána has introduced Operation Thor in recent months – a €5.3m investment that has seen additional vehicles bought for gardaí to pursue mobile criminal gangs.

But extra cars have not been the demand of rural communities in recent years – the closure of rural garda stations has been the single biggest issue, and with a recent Garda Inspectorate report finding that some 1,500 extra gardaí could be on the streets if the force was better organised, there is sure to be little wiggle room for coalition politicians on the crime debate in rural areas, and ample opportunity for opposition candidates.

Economy

A study released at the start of December found that Ireland’s economy is uneven, with urban areas moving ahead of the rural, where higher unemployment levels remain, with some areas in the South East and Midland still burdened with a 12% unemployment rate.

Enda Kenny has denied that Ireland’s rural economy is ‘dead’, but Newstalk’s reporting has found towns where a lack of investment and a dearth of opportunity has left little tangible evidence of Ireland’s much talked about recovery.

While recovery makes it sound like a return to ‘normality’ (if anyone can actually pinpoint what that is on the timeline of Ireland’s past), the reality is that the recession has left deep, permanent scars on many towns.

One such area that Newstalk has reported on is Gort, in Co Galway. Gort was once a town lauded as an example to rural Ireland of the possibilities available – with manufacturing skyrocketing and a major Brazilian population immigration, the town had a vibrancy and shining prospects the envy of many others in small town Ireland. But the recession hit Gort worse than any other town in the country, according to the Commission for the Economic Development of Rural Areas. The Brazilian community left the town in droves and local businesses shut.

Worryingly many economists fear this decline is likely to be permanent, and rural Ireland may never recover.