Mr. John Moran:

The Deputy knows I have been one of the biggest fans of balanced regional development. Ms McCabe and I complained on the way in here that we could have been in a committee room in Limerick and we would have had to travel a lot less, since we do not have the pleasure of sitting with the committee. The public service and Government have to lead in this respect. There are serious challenges concerning population dispersal across the State. There are parts of the country where birth rates are not keeping up with deaths. Meanwhile there are areas, such as the greater Dublin area, that were booming before this crisis and will continue to have those dynamics. Economic growth will follow population growth.

Returning to today's agenda, this issue is one of the reasons saving the SME sector is so critical. SMEs disproportionately employ people outside of the greater Dublin area. I love going down to Waterford as much as I can, although I would prefer if the road from Limerick to Waterford was a little easier to travel or there was a better train system. Today's agenda is very important to saving social fabrics throughout the country. If we do not save SMEs, we will be faced with empty towns and boarded-up shopfronts all across Ireland. That might not be the case.