Mr. Paul Hogan:

It certainly does not represent deficits as a constraint on future development. If anything, it recognises that future development needs investment and that any existing constraints require catch-up investment. We are very clear on that. At the outset, I mentioned the continued alignment with the national development plan. That is really strong. The national investment office in the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform is our parallel entity in that spending Department. It monitors the levels of public investment going into each of the regions very closely and publishes documentation on that every year. We can only look at what it is saying is being invested nationally. It has a project tracker on its website through which you can look at the projects in the north west, the value of those projects and how they compare to other parts of the country. National planning objective 6 recognises the special position of the north west in not having major cities north of Galway. As a result, we call out regional centres like Letterkenny, Sligo and Athlone as key locations for investment. In this, we largely focus on the fact that they are well-established large towns of scale with third level education that function as regional catchments. We have specifically called out those towns for further investment. There is an opportunity there. The strategy intends to set out ambitious objectives for the cities as regards what they can achieve but also further objectives for regional centres within the regions, particularly the north west. As I have said, that is being followed through with our colleagues in the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform.