Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

It was important to help Deputy Ring. He and I are good friends and we live just across the county border from one another.

I was bitterly disappointed that the planning application for what I thought was a prestige building on an excellent site on the road to Knock Airport was refused. However, my attitude is that if one is not successful when approaching a matter from one direction, one should come at it from another. I am sure the people of Mayo will welcome the decision to move rapidly and proceed with both the construction of this building and decentralisation. The good news is that by the end of this year or the beginning of next year 100 people will have been decentralised to the west.

There has been some ill-informed comment in the newspapers in recent times. Those responsible for it have counted up the jobs we created and then examined the position of people who have made inter-regional transfers. These individuals seem not to understand that 30% of the people working in my Department's office at Tubbercurry came from within the region. Vacancies must be filled from the region and they are eventually filled by people who would otherwise have been in Dublin if the jobs had remained here. The argument regarding from where people initially come is spurious. If one moves 100 extra jobs that were originally in Dublin to a region, this means that eventually there will be that number of additional jobs in said region. My two colleagues opposite will agree that this is how it works and that the decentralisation programme should proceed.

On Waterways Ireland, two major steps forward are being taken in this regard. In the first instance, I held a historic meeting with my colleague, the Northern Ireland Minister for Culture, Arts and Leisure, Mr. Edwin Poots, and a decision was made to proceed with the planning of the Ulster Canal. We are doing this on a phased basis. The first phase will be totally funded by the Exchequer and will take approximately six years to complete. Dá fhad é an bóthar, caithfear tosú áit éigean — no matter how long the road is, one must start somewhere. I am delighted that this landmark project will finally proceed. I do not doubt that it will be a major success and that it will lead to further successes in the future.

We are providing €77 million under the national development plan for the development of Waterways Ireland. Included in this is the completion of the Royal Canal from Dublin through the Acting Chairman's constituency and all the way to the Shannon. Completion of this major project in 2009 will mean that people will be able to travel from the Shannon, via the canal, to Dublin. This will be of great benefit to everyone who lives along the waterway.

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