Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick, Fine Gael)
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No. In regard to the regional development strategy, the IDA announced yesterday the initial tranche of larger urban centres. There is a substantial tier of towns in the population category of 1,500 to 7,000 underneath that. Mr. Shanahan told Deputy John Deasy that he was open to suggestions from local authorities. Is he open to suggestions now or will authorities have to wait until 2017? Local authorities may have plans, sites and ideas with potential. I am thinking of my own county of Limerick which suffers from a particular issue. We have a large urban centre in Limerick city, which sucks all of the activity in but there is then a huge geographical area of small towns and villages with a rural hinterland. The attractiveness of Limerick and Dublin makes inward investment outside these cities very difficult.

I refer in particular to the IDA taking on the FDI role that Shannon Development previously had without taking on the land bank. There is an anomaly there and I am concerned that we will be losers yet again in terms of the €150 million provision. Local authorities may be coming to the IDA with the plans but the land is in the ownership of Shannon Development which is bound by statute to get the commercial value for it. Is that something the IDA will consider? This is an issue for the old Shannon Development region stretching from Birr to Tralee. I would like to see some progress being made to address it.