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

I know. I come from Mayo so I can really identify with that. Dr. Griffin is exactly right in what he said. I would like us to have a conversation about this because it is really important and it is an opportunity to have in the room the people who have done the analysis on this. Sometimes we need to take the sentiment out of this and look at the hard facts.

When we look at the hard facts of the north and north west, the EU regional competitiveness index shows that out of 234 regions across the EU, the north west ranks 218th for infrastructure. That is in the bottom 7% alongside some of the poorest regions in the EU. Why has that happened and how has it been allowed to happen? Is it because of the assessment criteria used for projects or the matrices to measure decision-making? How have we arrived at a situation in which we are one of the richest countries in the world yet we have a region the size of the west and north west in this state? Will Mr. Power comment on that?