Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I would like the Minister of State to address the following question. How much money does he believe is necessary to develop the Atlantic corridor? What is the ballpark figure? We are not asking for a commitment from the Government, but roughly how much money will be necessary?

The document produced last week by the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, stated she seeks to accelerate preparation for the development of broadband, not to accelerate the delivery of broadband but just the preparation for it. Of course broadband is massively problematic. The fact is the Minister cannot give me a guarantee today that all houses in rural areas will have broadband by 2022. This is phenomenal.

With regard to IDA Ireland, in recent years it has delivered well over 60% of its jobs in the Dublin and Cork regions. In the plan launched by the Government last week Cork was dropped from the metric, which now includes only Dublin. This is unusual because what was always measured was the area outside of Dublin and Cork. When I debated this with the former Minister with responsibility for enterprise, he always stated we cannot force foreign direct investment into locations outside of Dublin. The reason they go outside is if they can function there. They can function if they can transport, communicate, employ people and have competitive inputs. They do not have this on the basis of €16 million scattered throughout the country.

See this speech in context