Marian Harkin (Sligo-Leitrim, Independent) | Oireachtas source

On a personal basis, I wish the outgoing Taoiseach, Deputy Micheál Martin, all that is good and thank him for his service, especially during the pandemic, and his stance on Brexit and Ukraine.

I also wish the incoming Taoiseach all that is good. I do so not just because it is Christmas but because when our Taoiseach and Government do well, it is better for the country.

In my short contribution, I will draw a parallel with that statement. When our regions do well, it is better for the country. When the outgoing Tánaiste's party was in office nearly eight years ago, the northern and western region was classified by the European Commission as a developed region. It slipped back to a region in transition and is now classified as a lagging industrial region, which means it is caught in a development trap. When the Commission raised a red flag about this, how did the Government respond? The northern and western region received just €217 million of the €900 million given under the European Regional Development Fund, ERDF. In countries like Spain, Portugal and Greece, which include lagging regions, by far the greatest amount of this funding is being invested in those regions. That is not being done here. To add insult to injury, when the Northern and Western Regional Assembly negotiated €250 million deal with the Commission, the reluctance of Departments to spend money in the region meant €33 million of that money had to be given back. This is cohesion funding, which is meant to close the gaps nationally and within the EU.

The Government could have ensured the extra money given was spent in the region. It could have reduced the co-financing rate to 10%, as it was asked to do. It did not do so and therein is the core of the problem. There is no accountable and responsible Department, person or group of persons tasked with delivering balanced regional development. That is not because anybody in the Government is saying, "We will not try to achieve a balance of development between regions.". It is because the Government, like previous Governments, has allowed regional development to slip through the cracks, which means it just does not get done. Yes, there has been progress in some areas, including, for example, the establishment of the Atlantic Technological University. However, the gap is so great that unless there is positive discrimination and a whole-of-government approach to closing it, the slippage will happen again and again.

Another example of that gap is in respect of the connectivity of the region, including its rail, road and air services. On accessibility and proximity criteria, according to the OECD, the region scores well below the EU average. Just in the past five weeks, we learned that not one of the designated five surgical hubs is to be located north of a line from Dublin to Galway. Hospitals like Sligo University Hospital, having lost part of its cancer services and having been told there is to be no catheterisation laboratory for the north west, now must continue to wait for its surgical block. Without it, as we all know, there can be no guarantee of the long-term viability of there being an acute hospital in the north west.

The region is at a tipping point. I see little or no evidence of a co-ordinated and properly funded plan to close the economic gap. As my colleague, Deputy Fitzmaurice, will outline, there is a real threat to agriculture and rural development in the region, without, so far, an adequate response from the Government. Therefore, I cannot support the nomination of the outgoing Tánaiste as Taoiseach.

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