Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

-----but there is the threat to productivity and the threat to competitiveness going forward if we do not invest in our infrastructure. We have, as Dr. McQuinn rightly says, housing and health to deal with and things should be thrown at them because of the impact they will have in the longer term.

In terms of regional imbalance, when we look at the European Regional Competitiveness Index for the west and the north-west, we can see that those regions are way below. It is something like the bottom 7% in terms of competitiveness. That is impeding our growth in the west and the north-west regions. The witnesses rightly spoke about the opportunities that are there. I would see that as an opportunity to address that deficit. In fact, we cannot continue with this lopsided situation across the country. I refer to investment into the likes of rail infrastructure, the western rail corridor and other pieces of infrastructure so we are able to maximise the potential for renewable energy and all of that, and it is done in the right way.

It includes investment in the Atlantic Technological University, ATU, and Atlantic economic corridor. Will Professor McQuinn speak about what we could do to address the regional imbalance with some of the money we have?