Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister mentioned earlier that substantial funding would be made available for the Platforms for Growth investment programme. It is very welcome. I sincerely hope that Fáilte Ireland is assessing the application. It can give particular consideration to places where there had been underinvestment in the past due to no fault of those areas.

Where the Minister and I come from, however, we suffered because of the Troubles. We suffer for historic reasons and we were slower getting development and tourism amenities put in place than other parts of the country. Thankfully, we are catching up but we need additional investment to drive and create more tourist attractions and further develop our tourism product to create additional employment.

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