Jerry Cowley (Mayo, Independent)

The Council for the West is meeting politicians across the road. It is talking about the gross underspend on the west. This is the burning issue and those across the road have been talking for some time about the terrible deprivation in the west. All this money that has been overspent has been wasted. If the Government got off its backside and gave the money to projects that deserve it instead of its mean approach, where it will spend money on daft projects and mismanagement, the country would be much better.

The bill for the illegal nursing home charges will come to €1 billion. What would that have done? The western rail corridor requires €365 million. The Minister for Transport came to Mayo this week and, as Yeats said, spoke "polite, meaningless words". It was all aspiration and no substance on the western rail corridor but he could spend €50 million on an electronic voting system that did not work and thousands more on a PR consultant who did not seem to work either.

There was talk of upgrading Cork Airport for a cost of more than €160 million. How will this money be spent or will the end figure be double that? We heard all about the second terminal for Dublin Airport today. What about the position at Knock Airport? At one end of the country, 500,000 are using an airport that would serve 13 counties while on the east coast, which is already falling into the Irish Sea under the weight of congestion, it is projected that there will be 38 million passengers passing through the airport by 2025. It does not make sense.

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