Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)

People pay a good deal of revenue to the State. They do not mind this, but they are upset as regards what is happening in the public service. People ring the Department of Social and Family Affairs, the council and the health board. It seems the biggest employer now in the country is voicemail. There is voicemail here, there and everywhere and one never gets a reply back from it. We are spending a fortune putting new executives into county councils, health boards, the Department of Social and Family Affairs and computer services and we are supposed to be more modern and yet when people pick up the phone the first thing they hear is voicemail.

I was disappointed I did not see a provision in the Finance Bill 2007 for Knock airport and on the BMW region and the underspend involved. I am disappointed that the western rail corridor will not be opened soon, rather than having to wait 25 years. I will have left the Dáil by then and I assure the Minister of State that we will never have the opportunity to use that service to come to the Dáil or anywhere else.

People feel let down. They are paying their taxes and their dues to the State, but the State and the public service are not doing their job. We are disappointed that we are not getting our fair share of the national cake in the west, including in my town. I received a letter from the NRA this morning, which is another body that is not accountable to anybody. Every Minister has handed over power to the NRA, the HSE and so on, and these bodies will not respond.

However, I got a letter back this morning regarding the N5 from Westport to Castlebar. Westport is a thriving tourist town, trying to do business and trying to employ people, yet there are tailbacks in the town every single day because the roads cannot deal with the number of cars coming into the town. When Fine Gael was last in government between 1995 and 1997, that was the first priority for Mayo County Council. However, this morning's letter from the NRA informed me that it is no longer a Government priority and that it was more concerned with developing roads into the cities. A number of roads on the east coast were named so the west will suffer again because the east coast must get a third round of Structural Funds.

It is time to call an election. The people are waiting for this Government. None of us likes elections, but I am looking forward to this one because we will be able to show the people what we delivered in County Mayo in two and a half years whereas nothing has happened in the past ten years.

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