Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State was talking about skill sets, degrees and all the rest. IDA Ireland will not look at towns like Cavan or Monaghan because we do not have a third level college. A skilled workforce must be coming through with primary and master's degrees for IDA Ireland to consider bringing big companies to an area, whether we like it or not. There must be a highly skilled workforce on the ground to take up the jobs. Of course we have apprenticeships and Combilift is a wonderful addition to the area. People going into those apprenticeships are on the minimum wage. Therefore, there are young people from the constituency with degrees from other parts of the country, who will not consider going back to their homeplace because the highly skilled jobs are not there for them.

The east-west link corridor is the most obvious piece of infrastructure that we need to service the whole north-western region. That is not being parochial. It needs to be specifically named. We are highlighting projects that are obviously apt.