I think we do have some. One of our categories is “urban and rural disadvantaged”, and the rural is an important one.
First of all, it's a question of looking at the population mix. There's a much higher proportion of older people and younger people in rural communities. The middle group very often migrate to towns and so on to take up employment.
My experience is that the problems with rural poverty are quite similar across developed countries. I was at a conference recently in Rome, and from a European perspective, I just couldn't believe how similar the problems were.
What you mentioned there is true. First of all, people live in isolation, and there's a need for some form of organized support and intervention in that regard. We're providing that and developing that in Ireland through community development initiatives, where people are contacted, befriended, and they're brought to community centres on a daily basis so they can interact with others and with people of their own age.
In the northwest of Ireland there's a particular project for older men, who are regarded as particularly vulnerable by virtue of being isolated and so on, and a lot of very good work has been done. Actually, it's a border region, so this is a combined project between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
In terms of what you mentioned about transport, it's very true. We have a rural transport initiative. Public transport runs very irregularly, so this is one that's very much focused on people's needs--when people are trying to access services, access training if they're unemployed, access employment at times. And that's key to improving considerably people's quality of life. A lot of the services at a local level are being run down because of the lack of critical mass. In other words, people with cars are able to go to bigger centres. Of course, people who don't have cars or can't easily access these services are left, then, with very deficient services.
So these are just some examples; we have many more. But the nature of rural poverty is that it's a very distinct form of poverty requiring very distinct supports, and a strategy can identify that and come up with solutions on a more integrated basis.