Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The question I will raise relates to the European Union regional competitiveness index for 2022, which has been published. This index cites the northern and western area in Ireland as an area in decline and states that it has underperformed in certain areas, including the areas of infrastructure, innovation capability, market size and business innovation. This is not a criticism of anybody but a factual report. The thing about a factual report like this is that we should look at it and see how best we can grasp the potential and opportunity it gives us to close some of the gaps that exist so that the overall competitiveness in the country can be increased and so that we can move up from ninth position on the competitiveness index for Europe.

There are areas we should be looking at in that regard. I acknowledge that the national broadband plan is in place. I played a part in getting that in under the last Government. A lot of work is also going on under the urban and rural regeneration funds and the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, is doing a lot of work. However, we need to take a different approach to make sure we increase the competitiveness of this area. We need to look at the designation of the area for enterprise and how we can best incentivise foreign direct investment to come into the area. One of the other glaring things I see is that we have great potential for offshore energy in our Atlantic waters. We have a number of ports, such as those at Galway, Ros a' Mhíl, Killybegs and Foynes, but none of these meets the standards required to service such an industry when it comes.

Let us take the outer bypass in Galway, which we could write a book on, and the fact that we need to join up our railways in the west of Ireland, from Sligo right down to Galway and Limerick. We need to deal with all of that. We need to put in sewerage systems and make sure that land is serviced for future development. Last year or the year before, Intel was looking at locating a major chip manufacturing plant in Galway, which would have brought a great deal of investment and many jobs into the region. Intel did not come but that is okay. At least it looked at that site in Galway. We need to make sure that, when the next Intel or similar company comes to look at the area, the infrastructure deficits have been remedied so that its plans can become a reality. There is an opportunity here to tap into Europe for funding to help develop the region and, in turn, to improve Ireland's position on the European Union competitiveness index.

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