Paul Connaughton Snr (Galway East, Fine Gael)

I want to share my time with Deputy Perry.

I thank Deputy Cooper-Flynn for being instrumental in bringing this debate onto the floor of the House. I believe the Government still loves her, which is perhaps the reason this was granted. In any event it serves a useful purpose in highlighting the inadequacies of the national development plan as it affects the west. I would need 45 rather than five minutes to cover all I want to say. However, as I have said on a number of occasions the census of 2002 showed there are 3.9 million living in the country, of which 2.2 million live in the greater Dublin area. It also showed that there are 18 counties with a decreasing rural population. Straightaway, it is obvious that there is an enormous imbalance.

I had understood when the Government had decided on the national development plan, followed by the national spatial strategy and the decentralisation plan, that what it had in mind was to reverse the engines as best it could and to somehow level out the lopsidedness that has developed in the country. That has not been done for the specific reason that the Government has allowed the forces on the ground to dictate where the money will be spent, on the basis of fire brigade necessity. Situations crop up in and around Dublin to which money is allocated and once that happens it cannot be spent anywhere else. That is a simple way of explaining a very complex matter, but that is exactly what is happening. This Government has been particularly bad in this respect.

I have not time to go through the figures, but just take the M6 from Dublin to Galway. That was supposed to be completed in 2006, yet the land for it is only now being acquired. I reckon it will be 2010 before I can drive from Ballinasloe by dual carriageway to Dublin. As for the M17 and M18 feeding into the M6, into Galway city, that will take another ten years. Some people will cynically say that the situation is much better than what it was and that the roads will be built sometime at least. This is true, but while we are waiting for this to happen, imagine the scale of development at the opposite end of the country. Every time I hear of another €1 billion being spent on the new M50, or M51 radial road around Dublin, that means €1 billion less available for development in the west. That is how it works out because of the scarcity of financial resources. I have been arguing the case for over 20 years that unless the spending is ringfenced in order to bring hope and prosperity to the disadvantaged areas, the gap will not be narrowed. This Government and its immediate predecessor gave the impression that such spending would be ringfenced. They did not ringfence it. Unless something dramatic is done we will lose out further in the future, no matter how the figures are massaged.

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