Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I do not doubt the Minister's personal commitment to regional development. She is from a Border county herself and understands first-hand the importance of regional development. When she talks about 58% of IDA visits being outside Dublin, she does not take out Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford, along with the bigger urban areas, after which the figures are very different. IDA visits to regional areas are down to about 20%. I do not think that is good enough. I think there is still overconcentration on the larger urban areas. Being parochial, the IDA park in Marlinstown in Mullingar is a state of the art business park. It is 80 km, or 50 minutes, from Dublin city, port and airport. That lies vacant. We need to accelerate our efforts to attract inward investment to the regions so that we can ensure that people have an alternative-----

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