Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Ring and his intervention is timely. When the Taoiseach was Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, we secured up to €145 million in funding from the European Regional Development Fund to support projects coming from the regional enterprise plans that I previously mentioned. The officials are working with Enterprise Ireland on developing the scheme, with the aim of announcing the first call of approximately €35 million in the coming months. This funding will support innovative enterprise-focused projects throughout the regions such as those we are speaking about. I will certainly work with the Minister and the Deputy on achieving this. When the airport was opened, the headline on the front page of The Western Peoplewas "And They Said It Couldn't Be Done!". The board presented copies of this to the Taoiseach and the Minister of State, Deputy Chambers. They are also saying it cannot be done with the strategic development zone but we will prove them wrong once again.

See this speech in context