Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Scanlon for his remarks. We are two west of Ireland people talking about the west and the north west. My philosophy is that we need to put in infrastructure which leads to development. We talk about infrastructure in terms of roads, railways and broadband. That is what the programme for Government is about. We need to make sure we end up with a balanced economy. We must develop the Atlantic economic corridor, for instance, which is in the programme for Government, in order that we create a counterbalance to the east coast along the west coast from Cork to Derry. We want to have equality in everything. People living in Dublin who have to pay €415,000 for a house are suffering and people in the west are suffering because we do not have economic opportunities for them. The programme for Government is all about creating balanced development for this country and creating a counterbalance to Dublin.

A total of 600 jobs were decentralised to Donegal, Mayo, Leitrim, Mayo, Roscommon and Galway in the previous decentralisation programme. Jobs in the Department of Social Protection were decentralised to Sligo. I agree with Deputy Scanlon that it is necessary to have infrastructure and to extend the roads and motorways. That is our intention. The vision for the Atlantic economic corridor is to create such infrastructure in order that we end up with a situation where our children can grow up in the west and north west, be educated, get jobs and raise our grandchildren there and that the future is safe for them all. It is about creating a balance in society. It is not a huge country but it will take a bit of effort to achieve and the programme for Government has set that out clearly. I look forward to working with Deputy Scanlon in achieving those goals.

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