Ms Gillian Coughlan:

Certainly, the regions are not makey-uppy. To get back to the regional spatial and economic strategy, if we consider the 1990s, many of the problems then were due to the lack of joined-up thinking. We now have very skilled professionals looking at our natural resources, our labour markets, our labour force and our resources here in Ireland in every sense of the word, and planning for the future. That is something we had not been very good at down through our history. It is evident that balanced economic development still has not taken place, which is a stain on our history. The whole western seaboard still requires a huge amount of infrastructural investment.

The only way to do that is to devolve some of the funding and decision-making power from the Oireachtas. It must be the way. It is the European way of doing things. As I said last week, Europe thinks in regions and is administered in regions. The Local Government (Ireland) Act of 1898 set up county councils here in Ireland; it did not set up regions. We are getting to grips with that idea and that structure. I would certainly rail against changing them or disbanding them in any way. Once we start to change things, we know what happens with boundaries. In Cork county and city, in particular, it takes things a long time to bed in, and there are jealousies and little fiefdoms that need to be protected. That is a waste of time and energy. They are energy sumps.