Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Mr. McGuinness most sincerely. It should be noted that he has made a major contribution in the west and a major statement in saying he did not want to be reappointed. Unfortunately, it did not raise any issue in the national media. If it had been any other agency or an agency based in Dublin, days would have been spent talking about the crisis, but there was no such effect.

When the Western Development Commission was set up, I was very sceptical about it because nobody had talked to the existing agencies to say the commission would deal with particular items in the west. It was not like SFADCo in the days of Brendan O'Regan where it had incredible power in Shannon, the results of which we can still see to this day in that region. Does Mr. McGuinness agree that one of the major problems faced by the commission was the silo effect, with all of the agencies and Departments acting in their own interests and holding onto power and not being willing to release it to a major agency that would have major funding and a major role to play in business and industrial development in the west?