Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the fact that the Minister is telling me the document will be published. I take it that it will be published in October or in the next few weeks. Will the Minister confirm that?

Will the Commission report itself be available? All we have are media reports of what the Commission has done. What it has done regarding recognition is very serious. It repeated its previous concern that the regional disparities in Ireland were among the highest in the EU and warned that if left unchecked, the trend of growing inequality between regions would have a damaging impact on the economic and social well-being of all regions in Ireland. We are talking about counties Galway, Mayo, Sligo, Roscommon, Donegal, Leitrim and Monaghan. Has the region been downgraded to a lagging region? The Minister referred in his answer to a transition. Could he clarify the terminology? It means there are significant challenges, including relatively lower productivity and educational attainment and a weaker skills base and business environment. Lagging regions are characterised by extremely low growth that is divergent from that of the rest of the country.

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