Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister outlined some of the wonderful Coilite owned amenities across Cavan and Monaghan. When I say this, I am thinking of the Castle Lake and Forest in Bailieborough where local community groups, such as the Bailieborough Development Association and the Bailieborough Castle Lake Committee, today planted 2,000 hardwood trees to commemorate victims of the Troubles. Other amenities include: Dún na Rí Forest Park, located north of Kingscourt; Dartery Forest park, which straddles the border between Cavan and Monaghan; the Cavan Burren and the Marble Arch Caves Global Geopark, located 4 km south of the villages in west Cavan and Belcoo in County Fermanagh; and the Killykeen Forest Park. The Minister has outlined Killykeen's fantastic amenities and at 240 ha it is by no means a small project or forest park to have in our county. It has the potential to be a wonderful facility.

My point is that these are hugely important attractions in counties Cavan and Monaghan but they need investment. If the Minister of State has been to Killykeen Forest Park holiday village, then he would know it has had a huge deficit of investment. As a result, we are losing one of the most important tourist attractions in the county, and we do not have many of them.

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