Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)

His enduring popularity certainly helped him to secure that seat. Anyone who knows Mr. Gallagher will not doubt that he will admirably represent the interests of the people of Donegal South-West when he is in Brussels as an MEP for the huge Ireland North West constituency. I do not agree that the constituency is under-represented at the moment. Along with my colleague, Deputy McGinley, I will continue to represent the entire constituency in this House. We will continue to work as diligently and closely as humanly possible.

I would like to take this opportunity to remind the House that although the Donegal South-West constituency faces many of the same difficulties and challenges as other constituencies, it has benefited from substantial investment over recent years. There have been significant improvements in its infrastructural development, for example. I refer to Aerfort Dhún na nGall, for example. Tá níos mó postanna i nGaoth Dobhair faoi chúram Údarás na Gaeltachta. I was appointed as Minister of State at the former Department of Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands after a considerable number of jobs had been lost in the area. I concentrated specifically on developing new employment opportunities for the people of the Gaoth Dobhair area. That has been achieved. Almost €90 million has been invested in broadband services, metropolitan area networks and other technical infrastructure. More than €100 million has been spent on modernisation projects in our schools.

Despite the challenges we all have to address, sustained support will continue to be given to the Donegal South-West constituency. Job retention and creation will continue to be a central element of my work as a Deputy for Donegal South-West and as Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment. We will continue to work on the introduction of the job stabilisation fund. We are dealing with the due diligence on export credit insurance, which is hugely important. Agreement on the conduct of lending has been reached between the banks and the small and medium enterprise sector. I hope the credit supply clearing group will be supported by the Department of Finance, which has sanctioned research into the real problems that are affecting access to credit and working capital, which is a hugely important issue. We are revamping our public procurement policy so that it better supports small and medium sized enterprises. It is important to emphasise that jobs will continue to be created and retained in Donegal South-West. New opportunities will be offered to people in employment. The new initiatives in question are being developed in conjunction with the social partners. We will continue to have huge activation measures that will not just benefit the people of Donegal South-West, but the people of all the constituencies we represent. I assure the House that the Government will keep the issuing of the writ for the Donegal South-West by-election under review.

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