Seán Conlan (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister. I will start with the issue of fuel laundering. I raised it in a Topical Issue debate about six weeks ago and I also raised it at the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly. It is a serious ongoing issue. Unfortunately, much lip-service is paid to the measures that have been taken to tackle it, but the problem has been getting worse since last October. There is much talk about what has been done, but far more must be done. It must be more than just words. There must be real action.

In my constituency it is now almost a daily occurrence to see bowsers dumped at the side of the road, which was not the case a year or two years ago. This issue must be tackled head-on. It is not simply a Revenue Commissioners issue; at this stage it is a health issue. Water courses are being polluted by the diesel sludge. More action must be taken by the Irish Government and the authorities in Northern Ireland to deal with the problem. I do not believe enough is being done at present. There is much talk but real action is required by the Police Service of Northern Ireland, the Garda, the customs service, the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government and the Minister for the Environment in the North to tackle this. Politicians talk all the time about what they are going to do and what will be done, but I see what is happening on the ground. The situation is getting worse, not better, so it must be resolved. Real action must be taken and I hope the Minister will raise this issue at the next meeting of the North-South Ministerial Council. He should seek reports from the officials who are dealing with the issue. Rather than anecdotal evidence there should be real evidence of what is being done to deal with it. That would be a major step forward.

Infrastructure was raised and the Minister mentioned the A5, but many other projects must be carried out in the north east, rather than in the north west. From the 1920s through to the 1950s the basic road and rail infrastructure in the north east was dismantled. It has not yet been replaced. We are almost 20 years into the peace process but the road from Belfast to Monaghan and Cavan must be upgraded. I hear no talk at Government level of doing anything about it. It is the main arterial route from south Ulster into Belfast, which is the major city in the North, but nothing has been done to upgrade it. All the talk is about the road to the north west, which is fine, but what is happening in the north east?

This applies to all of the Border roads. Under the EU Programme for Peace and Reconciliation, PEACE I, the Border roads were reopened. However, only a small amount of money was spent and the roads were not upgraded to modern standards. We do not have the cross-Border road infrastructure that one would expect in a modern industrial nation. The roads were designed in the 19th century and resurfaced after the peace process started, but they have not been widened or straightened. It means there is a lack of connectivity between Monaghan, Armagh, Fermanagh and Tyrone which hinders economic development in the region. Twenty years after the start of the peace process this has not been tackled. Some type of approach should be made to the roads service in Northern Ireland and to the local authorities in the South, and extra funding should be provided, to deal with this problem.

On the issue of funding, there is much talk about a lack of resources. I co-authored a report for the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly less than a month ago which indicates where money could be obtained to cement infrastructure development along the Border. I wrote in the report about the European Investment Bank and how both the British and Irish Governments could access funding to improve infrastructure development in the Border region. In fact, the report recommends that both the British and Irish Governments target the Border region specifically for infrastructure development. It is an issue that can be dealt with over the next number of years but it must be dealt with urgently. The region was left behind. It is something people do not appear to realise. Our entire infrastructure was dismantled because of political interference on both sides of the Border between the 1920s and 1960s and it has not been put back in place. Although there is talk about some development along the Border, the macro picture has not been grasped by either Government in terms of what must be done. To ensure people in the Border region have an input and a positive view of the future, there must be proper investment in that region simply to bring it to where it should be vis-à-visthe rest of the Republic and Northern Ireland. That is not the case at present, so this must be done.

The north-south interconnector is a topical issue at present. I attended a landowners meeting a few nights ago which was also attended by 95% of the landowners in County Monaghan. None of them wants the north-south interconnector to be installed overground and every one of them will object to that. Unlike our friends in Mayo and in the south of Ireland, we have not been given alternative options in terms of specific underground routes. That is shocking. Everybody should have equality of treatment in a republic and the least we should expect, nearly ten years after this project was first mooted, is that the people in the communities affected would have real underground options brought to their attention and that there would be consultation about those options. I represented the County Monaghan anti-pylon people during the first An Bord Pleanála hearing. At the time I was not involved in politics at national level. It is like Groundhog Day because we are back where we started. There is still the same route that nobody wants going overground and through the community, but nobody seems to be listening.

This project does not have community acceptance on either side of the Border. The communities in Armagh and Tyrone do not want it going overground either. At least if we knew there were specific underground routes that were properly costed we could evaluate whether there were alternatives in that regard, but we have not been given those alternatives.

If we do not have an alternative, how can we evaluate whether the current project or plan is the best one? No alternatives have ever been given, so I would like the Minister to raise this issue with his colleagues in Northern Ireland because it is a cross-Border project of common interest. At the moment, however, it is being handled badly and has no community acceptance. It needs to be revisited before a new application comes forward. I am asking the Minister therefore to raise the issue at Cabinet level. He should ask his ministerial colleague, Deputy Alex White, to reassess this project in light of the fact that in the west and south EirGrid seems to be coming up with new proposals and new ways of dealing with the issue that it has not come up with in the north east. We expect equality of treatment in terms of how these projects are handled, in the same way as they are in Mayo, Roscommon or in the south. We expect to have other technical options put before us, but it has not happened thus far. It is exactly the same project as in 2010 when it failed at the previous oral hearing, and it is unacceptable.

Commemorations are important and we should be proud of who we are as a people. We should know who we are and not bow down or be worried about celebrating the start of a revolution to remove the British presence from Ireland. We decided as a people to become an independent nation, which is a matter for celebration. It is not something to be bashful about. I hope that in the forthcoming celebrations we will be straightforward about it. I do not think the Americans or the British would be bashful about celebrating their own history, so we should not be bashful about celebrating ours. I hope the commemorations will reflect the fact that 1916 was the start of a revolution to remove a foreign presence from our country.

We must always be mindful and respectful of all diverse views on this island, but at the end of the day the majority of people on this island want to live in an independent Ireland ruled by ourselves. The 1916 Rising was the start of that process and it should be commemorated. We have no reason to be bashful about it. It is important for the Government to be mindful of exactly what 1916 was all about.

The final issue I want to raise concerns the Dublin-Monaghan bombings. It is a matter that has been ongoing for 40 years and is a festering sore for people in the Border region. We have not received answers from the British Government about this, but we need answers. Until there is a genuine, proper response from the British authorities on this matter, it will continue to be a festering sore for the families and communities affected. I urge the Minister to raise this issue with the British authorities at every opportunity he gets. It is important that this issue is put to bed.