Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I do not necessarily want an approach that involves there being something for everybody in the audience, but what I do want to ensure, which was very evident and obvious during the course of the election campaign last year, is that we have an Ireland for all. We do not want an Ireland for the cities or for Dublin and Cork, we want an Ireland for all. The best way in which we can help the regions is with a spatial strategy that allows those regions the potential to grow, expand and provide for those who live in them to stay living them and perhaps for others to move into them. It is imperative for the Minister to indicate here and now that any review of the national development plan or the national capital investment plan is done in parallel to a procedure which either reaffirms the basic principles contained in the existing national spatial strategy or at least one which reflects a new spatial strategy which can be called whatever the Minister wishes thereafter. I wish him the best of luck with it. It is in all our interests that it is successful. I am adamant that the regions need every possible support and commitment contained in both the capital investment plan and the spatial strategy in order that they can work together, and thereafter, the regions, the local development organisations, county councils, local authorities and industry will strive to meet the demands placed on them and on the Government in order to further regional development.

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