Eugene Murphy (Roscommon-Galway, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome my old friend whom I know well from Shannonside Northern Sound radio and congratulate him on his appointment. I have no doubt he will do everything to attract more jobs to the region. I also welcome Mr. Martin Shanahan and his team. We have met on numerous occasions. I acknowledge really good work is done by the IDA. When one hears how hard it has worked to bring in FDI, one feels proud of a lot of the work it does. However, it is not all roses in the garden. I have a big issue with the lack of emphasis on regional development. In my county of Roscommon, for example, we had one IDA visit up to the second quarter of 2017. There were one or two in Leitrim and very few in Longford. While naturally enough cities such as Dublin, Cork and other places will have more visits, one wonders why there is not more of an effort to attract FDI to the regions. If one stands on a railway platform in Athlone, Longford, Carrick-on-Shannon, Dromod or Roscommon town any morning, Monday to Friday, at 6.30 a.m., it is packed with neighbours and friends all heading to Dublin for work. It is extremely stressful for families. It is a 4.30 a.m. start. They get on a train at 6 a.m. or 6.30 a.m. and are not home until about 9 p.m., like members of my family.

There is absolutely no doubt that unemployment is down in many of the counties I have mentioned. People are leaving those counties. There are still stubbornly high unemployment rates whether one looks at Longford, Roscommon, Leitrim or Longford. They have not reduced as much as in other parts of the country. One may say the issue is infrastructure. I acknowledge that we need the bypass finished along the N5 through County Roscommon, particularly from Ballaghaderreen to Tarmonbarry on the Longford border. We have a good N6 road and a good N4 road and parts of the N5 are great. We do not seem to be able to get jobs. There has been an absolute haemorrhage of jobs in that region. Natural changes have taken place with regard to ESB and Bord na Móna and those jobs will not be there in such vast numbers as they were in the past. We all know and recognise that. Over the bridge from Tarmonbarry in Roscommon is Clondra which is in Longford, where we lost 800 jobs from the Burlington plant. I am sure the witnesses know where that was. We lost the Glanbia plant in Rooskey and over 600 jobs, a few miles down from my own home in Roscommon. Recently we lost the ECMI cigar plant in Ballaghaderreen. The haemorrhage of jobs out of that region is a huge concern and has been going on for years. While I admit that part of it is a result of the lack of broadband or a good road network, there are still many good industries operating in the area so the infrastructure is sufficient in parts of the region. What is the IDA's policy on that? Can we have any more hope for the future?