Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Many Deputies have had conversations with representatives of IDA Ireland, focusing on the likes of Meath having such a low level of IDA investment, for example. The response is generally along the lines of telling people to drive up the road. The lack of that type of investment has a material effect on society in counties such as Meath, as we have a lower rates base, for example, than other counties, and therefore a lower income and expenditure base. That trickles right through the delivery of services in the county. This is not just related to the involvement of IDA Ireland; the process must involve Enterprise Ireland and the local enterprise offices.

Previous Governments made brave decisions to have clusters of particular industries in certain locations. For example, few people would have dreamed of having financial investment in the Dublin docklands, but it was a policy decision to cluster businesses there. There was also a decision to have clusters of medical technology companies in the west and pharmaceuticals in the south. We do not seem to have such brave policy decisions to have clusters of new industries. As the Minister mentioned, there is a change in the type of mobile investment that is happening but there is no decision that certain parts of the country will have a clustered centre that could create its own gravity, meaning we will not have to hold the hand of certain areas in ten or 15 years to bring in investment. If successful, mobile investment should want to go to a certain area because of the ten or 15 businesses already clustered there. The debate always seems to concern the chicken-and-egg scenario, but on occasion a government can make a decision to put the necessary investment and strategic supports in place to facilitate such a cluster. This Government is not doing that.