Eamon Scanlon (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail)
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I take this opportunity to raise the issue of the potential for the north west be developed as a key growth centre; to highlight again the country's two-tier recovery and unbalanced regional jobs growth; and to call on the Government to create a balanced jobs policy by investing in infrastructure and public service jobs in the north west.

I support a national review to examine further redeployment of public jobs and of all State agencies to regional and rural areas. Previous redeployment of Government staff outside Dublin created real economic value and brought long-lasting sustainable employment. Thousands of civil servants from Departments are located in counties outside Dublin. Many of these positions have contributed to sustaining employment levels during the crisis period in smaller towns.

There is huge potential for Sligo and Leitrim to be developed as the key growth centre for the north west. We need to see viability and economies of scale in the north west. Sligo-Leitrim is a large rural region and Sligo is the best located large urban centre to support development throughout much of the north west region. With redeployment and recruitment of public sector jobs, along with effective links to other urban centres throughout the region and improved connectivity, Sligo can become a more effective regional driver, supporting a greater share of population, economic and employment growth in Sligo itself and the wider north-west region. Furthermore, the most recent CSO figures show that Donegal, Sligo and Leitrim are among the counties in Ireland with the highest percentages of vacant dwellings. Many properties could be brought back into use in these regions and this would boost local development and ease pressure on prices and rents in Dublin and other areas experiencing vigorous growth.

There is clear evidence of a two-tier recovery with new job creation heavily concentrated in the greater Dublin area. The reality in the north west is that any improvement is happening at an extremely slow pace. There are serious barriers to job creation in this region that must be urgently addressed. The greater Dublin area accounted for about 40% of total employment gains in 2016. Disproportionate concentration in non-rural areas confirms that Government policy is skewed towards an unbalanced regional recovery. The Small Firms Association, representing over 200,000 businesses, has stated that the recovery has not been consistent regionally or sectorally. Many small businesses are still waiting to feel the upturn. Unequal recovery has been backed up by a Department of Finance paper, which stated that economic recovery in Ireland has been uneven across the country, with the recovery thus far primarily concentrated in Dublin and other urban areas.

There has been a clear failure by Government to create a balanced jobs policy towards the regions, with job creation concentrated nearly exclusively in the capital and commuter belt region. The Government has still a long way to go to reach its 2020 target of ensuring every region's unemployment rate is within 1 percentage point of the national figure. I wish to outline a few statics relating to IDA Ireland jobs. Some 45% of all IDA Ireland site visits in 2016 were in Dublin and 50% of all IDA Ireland jobs were in the capital and commuter belt area. In 2016, 48% of all IDA Ireland jobs were in the capital and commuter belt area. The midlands, north east and north west have been almost ignored, with the number of IDA Ireland jobs there accounting for 2.1%, 2.6% and 2.9%, respectively.

There is a very disproportionate concentration of our economy in one region which is not sustainable. To put this into perspective, London accounts for 20% of the UK's total GDP. The Irish concentration in our capital is over 40%. I appreciate that IDA Ireland does not decide where an industry locates. An industry locates in areas where it can get the things it needs to grow, with factors such as skill base and education being important. The Government, however, can decide where to locate public jobs and there is no shortage of highly skilled, qualified and capable people in the north west who are actively seeking work but the jobs just are not there.

Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. As a Deputy from the west of Ireland, I understand his concerns about balanced regional development.

As the Deputy will be aware, the decentralisation programme announced in December 2003 involved the relocation of over 10,000 civil and public service jobs to 53 locations in 25 counties. Up to the date of the cancellation of the programme, approximately one third of the target numbers, over 3,400 staff, were decentralised. While the decentralised offices account for less than 10% of serving Civil Service staff, taken together with the pre-existing regional and district offices of Departments the proportion of civil servants working outside Dublin is now just over 50%.

Non-property costs of the order of €30 million were incurred in respect of the decentralisation programme. These included costs incurred by decentralising offices and the OPW's spend on dedicated staffing for the programme. The staff relocation was accomplished on a voluntary basis without payment of removal expenses or incentives. It was also accomplished with minimal disruption to the ongoing business of the Departments concerned due to the graduated approach and risk management strategies adopted.

In November 2011, the Government agreed that the decentralisation programme should be cancelled in the light of the budgetary and staffing outlook. It was also agreed that a review of 22 projects should be carried out. Following completion of that review in January 2012, a total of 43 projects had been cancelled, while 50 were maintained, to be managed in the same way as other regionally based offices and Departments. It was agreed that one project, the Defence Forces in the Curragh, should proceed, on a cost-effective basis, as soon as budgetary resources permit.

There is a need to focus Government expenditure on programmes and projects that will best support economic recovery as well as the ongoing necessity to control public expenditure and pay, and the need to achieve efficiencies. The Deputy will be aware that the general government debt forecast is 76% of gross domestic product. Ireland is subject to the preventive arm of the Stability and Growth Pact, which links public expenditure growth with the medium-term growth rate of the economy. This means we have very limited resources or fiscal space for increased expenditure in the next four-year period. For these reasons, there are no plans at present to introduce a further programme of decentralisation.

The Government is firmly committed to the successful implementation of the PEACE and INTERREG programmes. It is particularly proud of its role in securing EU funding for a fourth PEACE programme. Along with its sister INTERREG programme, it will see investment of more than €500 million in the region over the period between 2014 and 2020. The programmes are important drivers of regional development in a cross-Border context. Through EU-funded co-operation, a range of Departments and agencies, North and South, have engaged in and benefited from a variety of cross-Border and cross-community projects. Support for the two programmes from the European Regional Development Fund is not only an important source of funding but also a key element of the European Union's continuing commitment to the process of peace building and reconciliation in the region over the last quarter of a century. Since 1991, successive INTERREG programmes have collectively contributed €1.13 billion to the economies of Northern Ireland, the Border region of Ireland and, since 2007, western Scotland.

In February of this year, the Government launched Ireland 2040. The plan is a discussion about how to secure sustained, long-term and regionally balanced progress on social, economic and environmental fronts. It is now time to think about the longer-term future of all parts of Ireland and to plan for that future. This is important and it is why it was included in our programme for Government.

With the return of stability there are a number of projections and challenges that are likely to be realised and we need to start planning for them now. This paper is the start of a major consultation process so that we can avoid the planning mistakes of the past. All communities and regions need to have their say. Decentralisation is not a panacea for the problems facing parts of Ireland, including the north west.

Eamon Scanlon (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail)
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I am disappointed to hear the Government is not even considering redeploying jobs into rural areas. I agree with the Minister of State that decentralisation, which was first mentioned in 2003 to 2004, became a dirty word ultimately. It was a very good idea and the only thing that was wrong with it is that the three-year timeframe was too ambitious. It could not be done in three years. What happened is that when the Departments went to buy property and sites, the gun was put to their head and they were asked for ten times the price. If the plan was to be phased over a ten-year period, it would have given people a chance and senior civil servants could have had an opportunity for their children to finish school, for example. If that had been done, decentralisation would and could have worked.

There are motorways everywhere in the south of the country but there is nothing when one reaches Mullingar when travelling from Dublin. Galway is fortunate to have a motorway all the way to the city, but the same is not true when one travels to Sligo. When I spoke to the IDA, I was told that when it brings people to the north west, those who make decisions are not interested once they reach Mullingar and find there is only a single carriageway road. They are not interested in travelling to Sligo or the north west because of the lack of a proper road structure. Unfortunately, that is the reality. It is not the fault of the IDA either. The people who make decisions on location are company executives. Whatever chance one has with proper infrastructure, one has no chance without it. That is why the Government should reconsider its approach.

I spoke to a friend of mine yesterday whose son is buying a house in Dublin - two up and two down with a ground floor bathroom. The cost is €415,000. One could buy three houses for that amount of money where I live. The quality of life would be totally different. If people had an opportunity and time to make a decision and sort out their affairs, they would move because there is a good quality of life in the north west.

Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent)
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I thank Deputy Scanlon for his remarks. We are two west of Ireland people talking about the west and the north west. My philosophy is that we need to put in infrastructure which leads to development. We talk about infrastructure in terms of roads, railways and broadband. That is what the programme for Government is about. We need to make sure we end up with a balanced economy. We must develop the Atlantic economic corridor, for instance, which is in the programme for Government, in order that we create a counterbalance to the east coast along the west coast from Cork to Derry. We want to have equality in everything. People living in Dublin who have to pay €415,000 for a house are suffering and people in the west are suffering because we do not have economic opportunities for them. The programme for Government is all about creating balanced development for this country and creating a counterbalance to Dublin.

A total of 600 jobs were decentralised to Donegal, Mayo, Leitrim, Mayo, Roscommon and Galway in the previous decentralisation programme. Jobs in the Department of Social Protection were decentralised to Sligo. I agree with Deputy Scanlon that it is necessary to have infrastructure and to extend the roads and motorways. That is our intention. The vision for the Atlantic economic corridor is to create such infrastructure in order that we end up with a situation where our children can grow up in the west and north west, be educated, get jobs and raise our grandchildren there and that the future is safe for them all. It is about creating a balance in society. It is not a huge country but it will take a bit of effort to achieve and the programme for Government has set that out clearly. I look forward to working with Deputy Scanlon in achieving those goals.