Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 8 February 2017

Committee on Budgetary Oversight

Macroeconomic Outlook: IBEC

2:00 pm

Photo of Lisa ChambersLisa Chambers (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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I apologise for being late. I found it quite interesting when the witness spoke about the rise in population and the direction in which we are going. It is good to be reminded of that in the context of our work.

One of my main interests is the road network and transport. I am a west of Ireland Deputy and am based in Mayo. In terms of public transport and road infrastructure, we fare the worst in the country, I know from talking to businesses - we actually had an IBEC briefing last year and I spoke to some of our major multinational companies such as Allergan and Baxter - that the road and the rail network is a major problem in terms of retaining the business they have. One of the points they made to us is that not only are they trying to keep what they have but when new contracts come on line they are competing for contracts with others in their company who are based in other countries around the world. I would be interested to hear the views on the importance of upgrading the road infrastructure in the west, in Mayo and in Donegal in particular. I would also like to hear IBEC's views on the western rail corridor and Knock Airport which are major infrastructural projects that we would like to see advanced.

Would IBEC discuss the TEN-T funding available and how it will work for Ireland? I have more questions Chairman.