Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the statements. Project Ireland 2040 is the result of significant consultation both with parties in the House and throughout the country. Given the failure of Fianna Fáil's national spatial strategy, NSS, it is remarkable to hear many of its members criticising this plan. Not one of the 22 fastest growing towns in the State between 2002 and 2016 was a NSS gateway or hub settlement. The strategy did not aid balanced development and there are now greater distances between where people live and where they work. What Fianna Fáil did, metaphorically or otherwise, was troop every one of its Deputies and Senators into a room to ask them what they wanted for their constituencies and they got it. That is not a strategy; that is parish-pump politics at its worst. I represent west Galway and south Mayo and the strategy did nothing for Galway or the west.

There was no investment in transport, housing or health, nothing. I am happy to outline some of what this Government's plan will do, not only for Galway but for the region. Our plan will provide funding for the Galway city ring road. This will provide relief from traffic congestion in order to implement smarter mobility and public transport measures. The project is currently at design and environmental assessment phase. A new elective hospital in Galway is also being funded. This will drastically reduce waiting times for elective surgery, not just for Galway but for the whole of the Saolta hospital group, which stretches all the way from Donegal to Galway and as far east as Athlone. A new emergency department will be built at University Hospital Galway. Replacement and further radiation oncology facilities are funded. There is funding for a new patient accommodation for Portiuncula Hospital, Ballinasloe and a new ambulance service base in Merlin Park. The N50 Moycullen bypass will also be funded, which will reduce congestion in Moycullen and provide a safer route, with better journey times and better journey time certainty that will improve access to the west and in particular to Connemara.

The technological university for the Connacht-Ulster alliance consortium will get funding for significant new buildings which will be provided to the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology, the Institute of Technology, Sligo and Letterkenny Institute of Technology in its bid for technological university status. The Government is committed to providing €15 million to the European city of culture 2020 project. There will be investment in national heritage, which includes Coole Park and Connemara National Park in County Galway. Gaeltacht investment includes the development of tourism facilities in Ceantar na nOileán in the Connemara Gaeltacht, investment in the Aran Islands, the development of improved pier infrastructure in Inis Oirr and the construction of new co-operative offices and community facilities on Inis Meáin. There is an investment programme for ongoing safety and maintenance and necessary new developments at Rossaveal Fishery Harbour Centre.

Towns and villages with populations of up to 10,000 people, places such as Oranmore and Claregalway, along with rural areas, can benefit from a new rural regeneration and development fund worth €1 billion nationally over 10 years. Under the sports capital programme communities and clubs across Galway and the West including in rural areas can bid for over €100 million in capital funding over the next four years. A new large-scale sports infrastructure fund of €100 million is being established for larger sports projects where the proposed Government contribution exceeds the amounts available under the current sports capital programme. That is what the Government's plan will deliver for Galway and the west; not parish pump politics but infrastructural investment in Galway, the west and north-west that has been badly needed for decades. I absolutely commend this plan to the House.

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